


The Mortal Boy King

by watchherrise



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4754216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchherrise/pseuds/watchherrise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is only fifteen when Uther is killed by a sorceress. He is faced with a kingdom who believes he is too young to rule, and outside threats who see him as an easy threat. Now in charge of the kingdom, and responsible for the laws, he has to deal his own consciousness of whether he should follow his duty and the way things have always been, or listen to the part of him that is starting to question whether his father was wrong. </p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mortal Boy King

**Author's Note:**

> All characters are property of the BBC. Title taken from the song of the same name by The Paper Kites. 
> 
> All my love and thanks to magic_penguin for the amazing artwork, it's all perfect. And to katarama and pendrag0ns for their lovely beta-ing. Many many thanks to the AC mods for running this event, and all the work they put towards it!

                                    

Arthur caught Morgana’s eye from where she was sitting across from his father, and gave her an exasperated expression. Morgana, who was talking to Uther, tried to hide her smile. They had both tired of the feast, dragging into the late hours of the night.

He was about to get to his feet, to excuse himself, when the door to the room swung open. Turning to the door, he saw a dark haired woman in flowing clothes, her eyes burning gold.

Uther’s expression hardened, and he stood up, a call to the guards on his lips. The sorcerer’s hand flung out, and Uther collapsed.

Arthur lurched out of his chair, knocking it to the floor. He barely heard the resounding clatter amongst the screaming and the fleeing feet pounding against the floor. He knelt down beside his father, grabbing tightly onto him.

“No, no, no,” he begged softly. “Father, please.” All thought of the culprit had left his mind, and he was barely aware of the knights shouting orders. “No, father, no…”

Arthur’s sobbing went unheard by his father, who had been dead before he had hit the floor. His quiet pleas stopped when he finally acknowledged it was no use, but that did not stop him from continuing to stare at his father’s body pleadingly.

He didn’t look up until a hand was gently placed on his shoulder. “Arthur,” Leon said softly, and Arthur looked up at him, tears running down his face. “We need to get you out of here.”

“No,” Arthur whispered, shaking his head. “I can’t leave him, I won’t…”

He was aware that there was nothing that he could do for his father, nothing that anyone could do. He wasn’t ready to accept that, to accept that the crown lying on its side a few feet away was now his.

“Yes, Arthur,” Leon said firmly, in a tone he had not used against the prince since Arthur was a child, and still bowed to Leon’s authority as a knight.

“I…” Arthur looked down at his father, and his breathing shook again. “I –I – okay.” However, he made no movement to, curling closer to his father instead.

“Come now,” Leon said gently, pulling Arthur to his feet.

Arthur did not let go of Uther until the last moment, hands falling lamely to his sides, one brushing against the hilt of his sword. What use had it been? What use had his years of training been? Leon’s years of training. There had been dozens of experienced knights in this room. His father had many years of experience, too. It had all been pointless. None of them could save the king; they hadn’t even had time to react. The sorcerer’s magic had killed the king before anyone had been aware of what was happening.

His sobbing worsened at the injustice, and he raised his hand to grasp the hilt of his sword. Often it had been a reassuring movement, reminding him that he was armed and able to protect himself. In this moment, it was the acknowledgement that it had been useless. It was a feeling Arthur never wanted to experience again.

The king’s murder reinforced everything his father had ever said about magic. It further proved to Arthur why it was evil and wrong, why it couldn’t be allowed to survive.

The hall had emptied when Leon led him out, save for the knights who surrounded the king and for Gaius, who pushed through to survey Uther’s body.

“Morgana,” Arthur said suddenly, twisting around to look for her.

“She’s safe,” Leon assured him. “She’s been taken by a guard of knights to her room. They will make sure nothing happens to her.”

Arthur wanted to voice the fact that a whole room of knights had not been enough to stop anything from happening to his father, and how he doubted just a handful of them would be sufficient to protect Morgana

“Is anyone else hurt?” he asked instead, voice shaking as he stopped in the doorway to look back into the room again.

“Not as far as we are aware.”

Arthur nodded, gaze turning back to Leon. Gaius had stood up, no longer crouched beside Uther, and that was when Arthur knew. Nothing could be done. Arthur’s head spun, knees buckling under him, but Leon steadied him.

“We need to get you to safety, Arthur. You are the priority now.” His voice was strangely calm. Arthur wondered how Leon could be so calm in the face of what had happened; he had failed his duty as a knight to protect the king. But when Arthur looked up at him, he could see the calm was a pretence. Leon’s tone may be steady, but the pain was unmistakably there.

Arthur allowed Leon to silently lead him through the castle as a small patrol followed them. He could still hear the commotion around him as people hurried past with wide eyes.

“You know what this means,” Leon said as they neared Arthur’s room. The young prince – almost king – looked at him, but he didn’t say anything. “I have faith in you.”

Arthur shook his head, though he didn’t doubt that Leon meant what he said. He didn’t want to think about it. Wasn’t it enough that he had just lost his father? He couldn’t focus on what came next.

“I’m not ready,” he admitted softly. “I’m too young…”

“No one is ever ready. You do what you have to.”

Looking at Leon, Arthur couldn't help the sobbing that started again, his shoulders shaking violently. He needed his father. He couldn't lose him. He couldn't lose both parents before he'd turned sixteen.

Pull yourself together. You're a knight and a prince. You shouldn't be sobbing like a child. Rather than calming him in any way these thoughts worsened his crying, his head aching.

"Sorry, sorry."

"Its okay to cry, Arthur,” Leon assured him. No man is worth your tears "You're allowed to grieve."

Arthur hid his face in his hands and slowly calmed his tears. Crying had not made him feel better. If anything, it had magnified the emptiness.

He was sure the knights would think poorly of him. Here he was about to become their king and he was a crying mess of a child. He couldn’t rule a country.

“I trust you understand the gravity of the situation and will stay in your room,” Leon said when they reached it. Arthur simply nodded. “There’ll be a guard on your door for now. I’ll come back later.”

Arthur nodded again and moved into his room, standing by the window to look out into the courtyard. He could see the torches lighting up small circles in the street, illuminating the knights searching for the sorceress. However, he doubted they would find her.

* * *

When Arthur entered the great hall some hours later, it was strikingly different. The room had been completely cleared except for Uther lying on a red Camelot cloak on top of an altar in the middle of the room. He dimly heard the wooden doors close behind him. Slowly, he crossed the room to his father’s body.

He knelt down beside the altar and closed his eyes. It was easier than looking at the lifeless body. He made a gasping sound, digging his fingernails into the palm of his hand and bent over double, touching his forehead against the cloth covering the altar.

Pendragon red, he thought. Camelot red. Blood red.

* * *

Arthur hesitated in the doorway leading to the throne room. Hundreds of people filled the hall, some glancing over their shoulders to look at him and others staring directly ahead. He was focused on trying to stop his shaking legs. Gathering up his courage, he forced himself to walk through the aisle lined with people. Nearing the front, he saw Morgana, who smiled weakly, though exhaustion was clear in her face. Leon nodded at him as he passed.

Arthur knelt to the ground in front of Geoffrey of Monmouth.

“Will you solemnly swear to govern the peoples of Camelot according to their respective law sand customs?” the older man said to begin the ceremony.

“I solemnly swear to do so,” Arthur replied keeping his tone neutral.

“Will you to your power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?”

“I will.”

“Then by the sacred laws vested in you, I crown you, Arthur, King of Camelot.” Geoffrey placed the crown on his head, and Arthur rose, turning to face his people. He still did not think he was capable of ruling, but he would do his best.

“Long live the king!” the crowd erupted around him.

* * *

Later, Arthur returned to the throne room and sat down on the chair, looking out into the empty room. It felt wrong, like he was playing pretend. It was his father’s throne, it wasn’t his.

His previous throne and Morgana’s had been taken away, leaving just the biggest one in the middle. Those were useless now. It made sense for Morgana to sit at the front when his father was king. She’d been his ward, after all. It made little sense for her to sit there with Arthur now that he was king.

The doors to the room entered, and he looked up. Speaking of Morgana…

“Arthur,” she said softly, crossing the room over to him. He gave a slight nod in acknowledgement but did not speak. She stopped in front of him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said in a hollow voice. “I’m fine.”

“I understand,” she said, smiling very weakly at him. He remembered that Uther was the third parental figure she had lost.

“How – how do you do it?”

“You just do,” she held her hand out to him. Slowly he took it, getting to his feet. “But you don’t do it alone.” Her hand squeezed tightly, and he looked at her, nodding slowly.

* * *

It felt strange to go to training. To be there listening and obeying when he now outranked everyone in the kingdom. He had outranked all the knights before, only behind his father, but it seemed different now.

He could tell they thought it, too. There was something in the way they looked at him. Even the green knights he tended to hang out with - far below his skill level but the only ones moderately close to him in age - kept their distance.

He tried to push down his disappointment and turned his attention to the drills. He ignored the sideways glances and the murmurs of being too young, too inexperienced. I know that, I cannot change it.

It was hard to throw himself into his training when his sparring partners were not throwing their all into it. Fighting distracted him. He wanted to fight, and everyone else was being too careful.

Frustrated, almost to the point of tears, he left the moment that training was done. Leon fell into step beside him. "You should hold a tournament."

Arthur stopped and looked at him incredulously. "A tournament? Leon, the king just died."

Leon nudged him into walking again. "The country doesn't stop because a king dies, sire. Kings die all the time. The longer you wait to restore normalcy to this kingdom, the shakier your hold on it gets." Arthur frowned, troubled. "It doesn't have to be soon. For your birthday perhaps. But start the wheels turning now."

Arthur did have to admit he would like a tournament, a chance to throw himself into a fight. And he'd gotten so close in the last one...there had only been a couple rounds left to the end.

"I'll think on it," he told Leon, and got a satisfied nod in return.

"I'll spar with you, if you want," Leon offered.

"Please."

Leon laughed and took a few steps away, unsheathing his sword. Arthur echoed the movement and then went to spin it around his hand to adjust his grip. He ended up losing his grip, and it fell to the ground.

"Shut up," he said to Leon's laughter. "I'm getting it." He could do it with daggers, he hadn't completely worked out swords yet. He picked it up and launched at Leon.

"Definitely time for a tournament," Leon murmured when Arthur had disarmed him only a short while later.

* * *

Realising that he had no idea how the system of organising patrols worked, Arthur met up with the head knights that organised them. He silently watched as they methodically worked out the shifts for the next week. Sir Ban kept glancing sideways at him, as if expecting him to protest or make his own comments, but he didn’t.

Once they were finished, he pulled the papers over to himself and scanned over them. He nodded at his own placements, then sifted through the rest, pausing when he reached one listed for the caves under the castle.

“What…Oh,” he started, then shook his head.

Sir Ban glanced at him questioningly, but he shook his head again. He’d wondered what that guard had been for, but he knew.

It was the dragon.

Despite many pleas to his father when he was younger, he had never been allowed to go see the dragon. He’d been disgruntled; that although Uther had boasted heavily about catching it, Arthur had never been allowed to see the proof. He had never been allowed to see the creature that had inspired many childhood fantasies of shining knights fighting dragons.

He passed the papers back to the knights and nodded. He would begin taking a bigger involvement in this aspect, instead of blindly expecting that it was one section that could be done without him. The placements of the knights was important.

As soon as everything there was settled he went straight to the caves under the castle.

“Who’s there?” a voice called as Arthur turned the corner, stepping into the torch light. Sir Bedievere and Sir Balan relaxed. “Sire,” they greeted simultaneously.

Arthur simply nodded and moved to walk past them. For the briefest moment it looked as if they were going to try stop him; Sir Bedievere took a minute to step to the side, when he caught himself, reminding himself that now as the king Arthur could go as he pleased, that what had been forbidden to him as a prince was no longer so.

Taking a torch off the wall, Arthur walked down the stairs. His footsteps were ominously loud in the silence and did not aid the nervousness that was beginning to build in his stomach. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he told himself softly. “You’ve nothing to be afraid of.”

The dragon was well contained, or so he had heard.

He stepped out of the passageway into a larger cave. Wide eyed, he glanced around the empty chasm, the cliff dropping suddenly down a few feet in front of him. There was rough pathway on his right that followed it down to the ground. Was that where the dragon was?

His torch was almost insignificant in this area, so large and open that his light was diminished. But still he raised it higher, trying to see further around him. When he decided to try the pathway and moved towards it, he saw a darkened shape moving out of the corner of his eye.

Startling back, his feet scratched against the rocks, and he stared up at the dragon now seated before him, heart hammering in his chest. His father’s descriptions did not prepare him enough.

“Young Pendragon,” Kilgharrah greeted. Only Pendragon, Arthur thought. “Have you come to free me?”

Arthur blinked a few times and then frowned at him. “No,” he said firmly. “Of course not. Why would I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you? Your father’s wars are not your own.” Arthur continued to frown at him, faintly unnerved. “Then what are you here for?” He was silent, not having an answer to that which did not sound childish. I just wanted to see a dragon.

“Just because my father is dead does not mean everything he stood for is.”

“But it does not mean you must blindly follow where he went,” the dragon replied.

There was a moment of silence as Arthur stared at him. His father was right. Here was Arthur’s first encounter with magic since Uther’s death, and it was trying to turn Arthur against his memory.

“You are destined for great things, young Pendragon.”

“What things?” he asked warily, but with the desperate hope that he was. That his reign would amount to something, that he would achieve something.

“You do not need to know just yet. However, know that you cannot do it alone.”

Arthur was unnerved in how similar to Morgana that sounded. He didn’t agree. Camelot was his responsibility. Ruling was his burden to bear.

* * *

Arthur raised his eyebrows at the chess set that Leon placed down on his table. “Don’t we have more important things to be doing than playing chess?” he questioned. In an absence of a father to teach him about ruling, Leon had taken on that role.

Leon calmly sat down on the table, folded his hands together, and looked expectantly at his king.

Arthur sighed and obliged, sitting himself down and moving a pawn.

“Strategy is important, sire,” Leon reminded him gently, moving his own piece. “It is a game, yes, but for logic and strategy, it can be very important.”

The young king had not played chess in a long time. Uther had always been too busy, and there was no one else that he had been in such close contact with, except perhaps Morgana. But he had never asked her, and the older they had gotten, the less accepted it was that they spent time in each others’ rooms.

“That was careless, Arthur,” Leon chided, taking one of Arthur’s pawns.

“It’s just a pawn,” he protested, eyeing the other pieces to see where to move.

“You needlessly sacrificed it. What did sacrificing that pawn give you? And why take a move which does not benefit you or lead to a plan?”

“You don’t know it didn’t,” he retorted, ignoring the first half.

Leon smiled faintly. “No, I didn’t, but you just told me you had no plan. Careless, Arthur. You’re making strategically unsound decisions.”

Narrowing his eyes, Arthur made a frustrated noise and stared intently down at the board, trying to plan out where moving what would take him.

“Don’t take too long. Quick decision making is also important.”

Out of frustration, Arthur picked up a piece and moved it along the board.

“Don’t let people pressure you,” Leon tacked on the end and moved his bishop across the board to take Arthur’s queen.

“Leo

n, I swear…” he growled, glancing up at him.

Leon was just smiling fondly, turning Arthur’s queen around his hands. Arthur frowned at him and turned his attention back to the game.

* * *

 Leaning on the table, Arthur eyed the map of Camelot spread out before him, showing the larger towns and villages – where the borders of Camelot began. Surrounding the table were a handful of his father’s advisors. He supposed that they were now his, but they didn’t feel like it.

“Bandits are ransacking the towns,” Sir Ector said. “Especially along the borders.” He ran his finger along the lines of the map. “They haven’t been this confident and extreme in their attacks since before Uther was king.” Arthur could not help but take it as a criticism, but he simply nodded, frowning at the map.

“More concerning,” the knight continued, “is that we have heard that Mercia is beginning to amass an army. Bayard is gathering his forces. There are also whispers that Cenred is beginning to do the same, taking this moment of the country’s weakness to attack.”

Arthur swallowed and raised his eyes from the map to look at Sir Ector. He looked back calmly. What is comparing me to my father meant to do? Everyone here is aware that I am not him. “My suggestion is that we begin to gather our own forces, so that if an attack does come, we are prepared to fight against it and make it look as if we are doing something.”

“And what about the bandits?” Arthur questioned.

“The bandits, sire?” he questioned.

“Yes. We can’t allow them to continue ransacking the country, attacking the people we’re meant to be protecting.”

“So what do you suggest we do?”

“Send out patrols,” Arthur said, “starting from the towns around the city.” he ran his finger in a circle around the city of Camelot. “And move their way outwards, or have a few overlapping their way out.”

“An incoming war is surely more of a concern?”

“I’m suggesting we deal with the threat,” he said, looking directly at him, “as opposed to the threat of a threat. That is all Cenred and Bayard are right now, a shadow of a threat. We need to deal with what is currently the issue and protect our people. That will also help deter their armies; dealing with the threat within our borders will send out the message that we are doing something, and we are not going to let someone easily come in and destroy this peace. Dealing with the inside threat will also deal with the outside one, in part.”

“And leave the city undefended? That’ll be the perfect moment to attack.”

I am young. I am not stupid. He held his tongue, and made a note to promote Leon to this council. “I’m not suggesting sending all of our force, Sir Ector,” he returned, keeping his tone calm. “Split the army. Leave enough to defend the city and send the remainder to deal with the unrest. Send a call out to the lords for their men to begin to gather our army.”

Ector nodded approvingly.

“See that that is done immediately.”

“Of course, sire.”

* * *

Arthur followed Leon’s advice and planned a tournament for his birthday. The closer it came, though, the less he was sure of that decision. It had been months since his father’s death, but it still didn’t feel right to be celebrating yet.

He also blamed his nerves. This tournament was a chance to prove himself, to show that he was capable of ruling. His father had been the best swordsman, unchallenged by his knights. Arthur knew he wasn’t that good.

The contestants lined the field and turned to Morgana as she moved to the stand. Arthur saw her shaking fingers tighten around the fence. She also wasn’t as confident as she made out to be.

Her voice was clear as she spoke, her smile charming as always.

The people had always loved Morgana.

“Best of luck to all of you,” she finished and caught Arthur’s eye, smiling at him.

Arthur nearly lost his first fight. He lost hold on his sword as he spun it to readjust his grip. He righted himself and then had to dive sideways to avoid a blow, falling to the ground. He heard the ‘oooh’ of the crowd, could sense the disappointment in their tones and their lost hopes in their king. But of course he’s only a child, they would say. How would he be able to do it?

He saw Sir Pellinore’s sword move towards him to press against his heart, pinning him to the ground, securing his own victory.

He was not going down that easily.

Tightening his grip on his sword, Arthur rolled sideways and lurched himself back to his feet. He silently vowed to have perfected the sword spin by his next tournament and faced Pellinore again, face set.

The round before the semi finals was the last round of the day. It was also the furthest that he had gotten in the last tournament. Pacing in his tent beforehand, his servant watched him, agitated, holding a bruised hand into his chest where Arthur had lost his temper and snatched at his gauntlet, putting it on himself.

“Sire,” he turned to the opening, and was faced with Leon. “Good luck.”

“Don’t you dare go easy on me,” he returned, tone almost a snarl in his agitation. He was too strung up, he knew. His whole body was shaking with nerves.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Come, it’s time.”

He nodded jerkily and picked up his sword.

“I would advise you against spinning your sword.” It was nothing new, Leon had been advising him against it since he’d picked it up. He called it unnecessarily flashy and careless. He said that losing control of his sword for a moment could kill him.

“I know.” Arthur was determined to master it.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that it had been the hardest fight he’d had against Leon, Arthur would not have been convinced the other had been lenient on him. It was something that Leon would do, to bolster his confidence and to avoid harming him.

But Arthur finished the fight, breathing heavily, sword pressed against Leon’s neck, knowing that he’d never fought harder in his life. Maybe if Leon had thrown it, it wasn’t completely undeserved.

He sheathed his sword and held his hand out to help the other up with the cheering of the crowd ringing in his ears. He smiled.

* * *

His servant did not return to his rooms. Arthur was not surprised or fussed. He simply sent for someone else to ready him for the feast.

When the new servant arrived, he stood there apprehensively. Arthur did not hold much hope for this one over the last few. He was starting to think that finding someone who was capable of doing their job was impossible.

“Come on,” he said impatiently. “I am on a time limit here.”

He wasn’t sure how he managed to get to the celebrations on time, but he did, meeting Morgana at the door. “You did well today,” she greeted him, smiling.

“Thank you,” he returned and took her arm. Together they entered the room. He still paused sometimes, as he moved to sit. It still did not feel right.

“Dance with me,” Morgana said, leaning over and pulling him away from his brooding. He raised his head to look at her, hand stilling on the food he had been pulling to pieces. She held her hand out to him expectantly.

“Morgana…”

“Dance with me,” she repeated insistently. “You should be celebrating.”

“I haven’t won yet,” he reminded her.

“But it is your birthday,” she replied. “Now take my hand and dance.”

He sighed, though he appreciated her attempt at distraction. Rising to his feet, he took her hand and led her towards the middle of the floor, nearly colliding with a servant. “Watch it,” he snapped.

“Sorry, sire,” the girl apologised quickly, curtseying awkwardly with a jug in her hand. She visibly relaxed when Arthur turned away from her.

“You should be kinder,” Morgana said, eyes on the servant over his shoulder as they stopped in the floor. “Especially to the servants. You don’t have to be rude. That was equally your fault as it was hers.”

“Lecturing on my birthday is the last thing I want, Morgana,” he said stiffly, moving a hand to her waist.

“You don’t have to be rude,” she said again, adjusting her own stance. Behind them the music started, and the two of them moved with it gracefully. “They’re not any lesser than you for –“

“Aren’t they?” he interrupted. “I’m the king, they’re servants. I would say they’re lesser.”

“You’re –“ she stopped as he raised his hand for her to spin. “You can’t make me spin all night to shut me up,” she warned him, but the corner of his mouth twitched, and she shook her head. “I mean it, Arthur.”

“Fine. No twirling.”

“That wasn’t what I –“

“Just give me one night of peace, will you?”

She frowned at him, but let it rest. Against her better judgement, he was sure. Morgana rarely gave up the opportunity to tell him off. He found it rather tiresome.

* * *

Arthur did his best not to think of the consequences of winning or losing his next two fights. He tried not to think of them as part of a tournament but instead just individual fights or spars in training. He could do that. He did that every day. It was easy. It was doable.

And it worked.

Heart thumping in his chest and arms aching, he stood victorious in front of his people. He turned towards the stand and saw Morgana beaming at him. His heart fell.

It should have been his father standing there congratulating him on his victory, his first victory…

He forced himself to smile and look happy and gracious, to look how he should have felt the first time he won a tournament. He’d just beaten a person twice his age, who had more years of experience than he had been alive. He’d shown himself better than the rest of the knights, but it did not make him happy.

When he could graciously leave, he did, heading straight for his room. By now, he should have moved into the king’s chambers, but he hadn’t.

* * *

“You’re requested in the throne room, sire.”

Relieved, Arthur rose to his feet. The report he had spent the last few hours staring at had manifested itself into a headache, and he was still no closer to figuring out what needed to be done. The bandits were being dealt with, and Cenred appeared to have quietened, but Bayard was steadily building his army.

Camelot was not prepared for a war. He was not prepared to lead them through one.

“What’s the concern?” he asked Sir Kay as he buckled his sword around his waist and left his room.

“A sorceress, sire.”

He stiffened and nodded.

When he entered the throne room, a young lady knelt on the ground. She had her arms curled around herself and was shaking. Arthur moved into the room and sat himself down on the throne. He looked expectantly to Sir Pellinore.

“She was found using magic, sire.”

“I didn’t…” the girl – and she was a girl, she couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Arthur – cried out. She looked up at him with wide brown eyes, pleading.

“You think my knights are lying are to me?” he asked. He shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have begun a conversation. He should have sentenced her and been done with it. What did it matter what her excuses or her pleas were? His knights said she had broken the law.

She shrunk in on herself. “I had to…” she whispered. “My son… he was dying…”

“I don’t care about your excuses,” he returned. It didn’t matter what reasons she had, she had used magic, and that was a crime. Any reservations he’d held about that belief had been banished by the death of his father. “You broke the law. I –“ he voiced caught, and inwardly he cursed himself. “I sentence you to death.”

“No, please, I’m all he has…”

Uncertainly, he looked at her. He’d never sentenced someone to death before. He’d ordered arrests and visits to the stocks and floggings in accordance to the law, but never an execution. Something about it settled strangely.

Before he had the chance to second guess himself, to suppose that perhaps healing a dying child – no matter the method – was not worthy of being killed, the young girl, sobbing now, flung out her hand. Eyes golden, she sent everyone in the room to the ground and lurched to her feet.

She did not move fast enough and was soon brought down. Sobbing, she was hauled out of the room.

See, Arthur told himself, as the doors shut behind them. Magic is harmful. Father was right.

* * *

“She was healing her child, and you’re going to kill her?” Morgana demanded of him, storming angrily into his room.

Arthur’s servant startled at the commotion and almost upturned the bucket of water he was using to clean the floors. Arthur once again working on his report, looked at her.

“She broke the law,” he said indifferently. “No matter the reasons. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m busy, and you are aggravating my headache.”

“I do mind,” she retorted, moving further into the room.

“Morgana,” he yelled back at her, rising to his feet, causing his servant – he didn’t remember his name – to jump again. “Need I remind you, that I am the king. Now get out.” The authority felt hollow in his ears, but Morgana wavered, she was not yet as steadfast as she became. “Leave.”

Angrily, with a swish of her skirt, she did.

“What are you looking at?” he snapped at his servant, who quickly ducked his head and went back to scrubbing the floor.

* * *

Carefully, he placed his crown on his head and walked out onto the balcony. He did not like wearing the crown often. It was heavy and made his neck ache. The people had gathered around the courtyard, out of morbid fascination. Every time that someone was sentenced they gathered, and this time was the first execution since Arthur had become king.

“Magic has no place in Camelot,” he said, looking down to the people as the sorceress was brought out and pushed down onto the chopping block. She did not fight it. “It did not under my father, and it will not under me.” Echoing how his father did it, he gestured with his hand, and the axe came down.

He’d stood there countless times as Uther had done the same, but there was something different about it being his command. He stared down at the beheaded body for a few more moments and then returned inside. This was nothing he should feel bad for. The law decreed it, and he agreed. Magic had killed his father. He was going to make sure it never had the chance to kill someone he cared about again.

If that involved killing mothers hiding within his city walls, so be it. He wondered how many others were doing the same, trying to covertly use magic. He frowned, troubled.

“Tell Sir Leon I wish to speak to him,” he said to the next passing servant as he headed back to his room. He had barely arrived and taken off his crown when Leon entered.

“You wished to speak with me, Sire?”

“Yes. I want a city wide search for traces of sorcery or sorcerers. This one went unnoticed. There could be more. I want them found.”

“Right away, Sire.”

Shortly later, Sir Ector entered the room, holding a scroll of paper in his hands. He held it out to Arthur.

“What is this?” he asked, taking the scroll and unwinding it.

“It’s a list of those in the city that we believe could be magical. Those suspected of interacting with druids or sorcerers, or who have had family members or close friends who were convicted of sorcery.”

Arthur frowned, looking at the list in front of him. “Why has nothing been done with this before?” he questioned.

“It’s all suspicion. None here are confirmed magical.”

“Round them all up. Search extensively through their houses. Execute any that you find having signs of magic. Search of the other houses in the city, as well, with the same consequence.”

* * *

“Arthur, this is madness.” Standing on the balcony, watching the courtyard down below, Arthur turned to face Morgana. “Can’t you see that?” she waved towards the courtyard, where a noose was set up, knights were dragging people through. Bringing them through to the dungeons, or the noose. “It’s worse in the town, it’s chaos.”

“Then they shouldn’t have used magic,” he said calmly. “By breaking the law they brought this on themselves.”

“They’ve done no wrong.”

“No wrong?” he demanded, and she frowned at him, taking a slight step backwards. “Father spent his reign trying to rid the evil that killed him from this kingdom. I am going to finish what he set out to do.”

“Arthur…”

“Magic killed him. I am not losing anyone else that I care about to it.”

“But they are losing people they care about to you.”

He looked back at the courtyard, watching as the noose was placed around a man’s neck. “Then they shouldn’t have broken the law.”

She came and stood beside him, placing her hand on top of his on the railing. He turned his head to look at her. “I know you’re hurting,” she said softly. “But what will this achieve? You don’t have to do it because your father did.”

“That isn’t why I am doing it.”

She looked at him sadly, pulling her hand away. “You had such a great heart, don’t lose it. Don’t let this destroy you.”

He did not answer, and watched her walk away.

* * *

“Cenred has declared war.”

Arthur’s grip on the edge of the table tightened as Sir Bedievere held the scroll outwards to Arthur. It should not have shocked him; this moment had been coming for months. They had been preparing for it for months, beginning to amass their own army in response, but he had desperately hoped that he would not have to rule Camelot through a war. Not so soon after he had become king.

He reached over and took the scroll, scanning over it. His gut clenched as he read it. “Increase the preparations for war,” he said, looking up towards the council members. “We need to march out to meet them.” To stop them from crossing over the border. He was not going to lose any land to Cenred.

“Right away, Sire.”

* * *

Standing by the window, his servant moved around him, helping him into his armour. Arthur watched the procession in the courtyard below. The knights had been amassed, the supplies had been gathered. It was a sea of red cloaks.

How was he ever going to be able to lead them?

His door creaked open, and he turned his head to find Morgana stepping in. Fittingly, she was wearing a red dress, and silently she crossed the room to him, her heels clicking on the floor. Shooing the servant away, she took his place, doing up Arthur’s gauntlets.

“Where did you learn to do this?” he asked her weakly as she aptly helped.

“I used to help my father,” she said softly. She paused to look up at him. “The last time I saw him actually… I did this.” Blinking rapidly, she took his sword off of the table and offered it out to him.

“Don’t you worry,” he told her, taking the sword and slipping it into his sheath. “I’ll be home.”

“You’d better be,” she said, her voice shaking. He knew she was trying so hard to stop it. “Or else I’m coming after you.”

“The knights of Essetir better hope that doesn’t happen. They wouldn’t stand a chance,” She laughed weakly, and he smiled faintly back, before glancing out the window. “I have to go.”

“Come home,” she said softly, and before turning away, she stepped up to him and kissed him lightly.

“I will,” he promised.

                                                                  

 “We fight tomorrow,” Leon said, coming to stand by Arthur. He gazed from the edge of their camp out to the fires at Cenred’s camp, small flames glowing in the dark. “You should rest, Sire.”

Arthur was not sure whether that was friendly advice or another example that he still saw him as young, as someone who needed to be told what to do, when. “Is there anything we can do?” he asked, instead of responding to his words.

“Hm?”

“To stop this.” He had watched his men at dinner and as they prepared for the morning ahead, calmly and happily, though aware this night might be their last. He could not bear the thought of the death the next day would bring. How many fewer fires in the distance would be needed.

“I’m afraid not, Sire.”

He sighed. What was worse was that it was nothing but greed that had brought this. Cenred saw Camelot as weak because of their young king and decided it was the best moment to charge the kingdom.

There was nothing he could have done to stop that. He only wished that there was something he could do now to stop it.

“Single combat,” he said suddenly.

Leon blinked at him. “Hm?”

“Single combat,” Arthur said again, turning to walk back into the camp to find a messenger. “Choose a champion to fight. The winner…wins.”

“That’s risky Arthur. You’re putting the whole kingdom on one person’s shoulders. Our army is stronger, we can beat them.”

Arthur paused to look at him. “But at what cost? How many will we lose before this is settled?” he shook his head.

“And who will be your champion? Whose shoulders will you put the whole weight of the kingdom on?”

Arthur looked at him resolutely. “Mine,” he said firmly. He could guess Leon’s protests before he said them and stopped him. “I will not ask one of my knights to do something I am not prepared to do myself. Cenred is doing this against me as a king, so I will fight.”

“He will not afford you the same offer.”

“I know,” he wasn’t foolish.

Leon looked at him for a few moments. “You’re worth too much to risk this.”

“I would rather risk myself than risk any of you.”

Cenred accepted the offer. Arthur thought in part it had to do with his decision to fight it himself. Kill the king and what did the country had left to fight for?

Arthur’s knights may have thought he was stupid for it, but there was a new appreciation for him as he crossed to the centre of the field in the early morning light. Both armies lined the sides, fully prepared for war.

In the middle Arthur met a knight, clearly many years older than him. His expression was scornful, clearly expecting him to be an easy target.

Arthur unsheathed his sword and calmly looked at the opposing knight. This was easy, he could do this. It was only like training. Except that he would be dead if he lost. And this knight was probably Cenred’s best.

Arthur twirled his sword around his hand, flawlessly. With that added bit of confidence he looked at the eyes of his opponent, who had watched the movement with a flicker of uncertainty. Arthur did not give him time to regain his calm before he attacked.

Years later, he would spare Anis’ champion out of goodwill, out of a desire for peace. But this time he unflinchingly stabbed his sword right into the knight’s gut, watching him collapsed to the ground once it was removed. Directly following came a call from Cenred’s troops, and, unsurprisingly to anyone, Cenred did not honour his word. His army attacked.

By the time they reached Arthur, his own knights had surrounded him, prepared for the possibility that would happen.

But Arthur had been willing to try, on the chance that it would have saved his men.

* * *

“That was foolish, Arthur. That move could have killed you.”

Arthur was leaning against a tree, trying to catch his breath. They’d rotated, giving each portion of the army time to give them time to rest. “No,” he said, finding it interesting how Leon reverted back to Arthur when he was telling him off or telling him to do something. It took hierarchy out of their conversations. “It threw him off. He was expecting some young, easy, target. I proved in that moment that I wasn’t, and it gave me the advantage.”

“And what if you’d slipped again? It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

Arthur looked at him. “It was my decision, Sir Leon,” he said sharply. “And I believe I made the right one. I do not wish to hear any more of this from you, understood?”

The knight looked at him for a few long moments. “Yes, Sire,” he said.

“I need to – “ Arthur stopped, looking out at the field. The wind that had early been non existent had brought in a dust storm that now obscured half of the field, hiding the bulk of the fighting. “He’s using magic?” he glanced at Leon, seeking confirmation.

“It would seem so,” he said softly, as the dust moved towards them. “Making it hard to fight in.”

“But it makes it hard for both sides,” he said frowning. “It deters us as much as them… unless…”

“Unless?”

“It’s a distraction.”

“A distraction for what?”

Arthur didn’t answer straight away, frowning. “What does the dust do? It stops us from seeing, makes it harder to fight them. But more importantly, we can’t see what they are doing. What if they are trying to surround us?”

“They’d have hard luck seeing through that to work out how to get around us.”

“They’ll have prepared for that. They’ll have a plan. I want to pull back part of our fighting force to go around the edges of the camp and stop them from sneaking up on us.”

“Right away, Sire.”

The difficulty became alerting their knights, because as soon as the dust reached them, they were effectively blind. Unknowingly making their way through the field. The sound of fighting died down, which made it harder for Arthur to keep himself oriented.

The wind stopped suddenly. For ten seconds there was silence as the dust began to settle, and then, suddenly, it started up again. This faltering continued until it finally stopped, and the dust was allowed to settle. Gingerly Arthur opened his eyes, wiping at them, trying to keep the dust out of them.

The magic had clearly failed before it was meant to, but it was clear that Arthur had been right. As his army orientated themselves again, they noticed Cenred’s moving around the outskirts of the field, about to meet a line of Camelot knights.

If the magic hadn’t fallen, they might not have been prepared. But if they hadn’t begun to prepare while the dust was still in the air, they definitely wouldn’t have been able to face Cenred’s army. As it was, they were too thinly lined in those places, and Arthur had to pull out the reserves. Exhausted men who had been fighting for the day, who just needed time to catch some rest.

The sorcerers seemed to have exhausted themselves, and there was no further magic until nightfall. Until the fighting in the dark was lit by fireballs flung across the field.

“We need to take our their sorcerers,” Arthur muttered to himself, narrowly diving out of the way of a fireball. He rolled along the ground and then pushed himself back up to his feet with the momentum, trying to ignore the ache in his muscles. A shriek and the smell of burning flesh, that he associated with executions followed, and he nearly doubled over, gagging.

But how? How were they ever going to get close enough to take them out?

They’d have to successfully push through their ranks to get to them. And the risks of that… even if they could manage to force through, they’d only be able to manage a small group. It was effectively be a suicide mission; those that got through could never get in, kill the sorcerers, and fight their way back out.

He went to go and find knights that would be willing to try.

“If any of you wish to back out,” Arthur said, addressing the cluster of knights standing before him, lit up by the fireballs continuing to rain down on their army. “No one will think any less of you. We may not succeed in this endeavour, but I believe that it is our best chance.”

He’d sent someone scouting as best as he could, to find what information they could about how many sorcerers there were, where they were, and the best way to get to them. But even so, they largely were going in blind.

Cenred withdrew his forces barely an hour after his sorcerers were taken down. Arthur smiled satisfactorily. It had been clear how much Cenred had been relying on the magic, knowing that he couldn’t outfight Camelot knights, expecting that with Camelot’s lack of magic, they would be unprepared to face such a threat.

But there was a way to fight every threat. Everything had a weakness, it just had to be found.

* * *

He was just dismounting his horse when Morgana came running down the stairs to him. “Arthur!” she exclaimed, taking in his tired form, the way he was leaning too much on one leg, the bandage wrapped around his arm.

He smiled faintly at her, passing the reins off to somebody else, not even looking at who they were. “I came back.”

“You did,” she said, relief clear in her voice, even through the worry in her eyes.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just flesh wounds, they’ll heal.”

She frowned lightly at him. “You need to rest.”

“Morgana,” he said with a laugh, shaking his head at her. He had just come back from a war, a war he had led and won, and here was Morgana mothering him. He did though, he couldn’t deny that. The days on horseback had done little for the constant ache in his body. He would appreciate a warm bath… he’d get his servant to – did he still have a servant? He could barely keep track of it anymore.

“I mean it.”

“I know you do. I will, but not yet. Couple more things to deal with first,” she frowned at him, and he reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

* * *

“C’mon,” Arthur berated the servant moving slowly behind him, awkwardly carrying Arthur’s armour. “There’s no need to take this long. Move it. You’re useless.”

In his attempt to hasten, the servant tripped, falling to the ground, causing Arthur’s armour to go clattering to the ground. He sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose.

When he looked back, some boy was helping the servant to his feet and gathering up the belongings. The servant awkwardly reached out for the gauntlets this boy was holding, but he did not pass them over.

Arthur looked at him. ”Pass them over, you’re holding us up.”

“It’s too much for him to carry,” the incomer said stubbornly, still holding the gauntlets. “Having a go at him won’t speed it up.”

“None of your concern, move along,” he said calmly, stepping up to him. The boy held his ground, looking stubborn. “Move along.”

“He can’t carry it all. I’ll help.” Arthur’s servant shifted uncomfortably, looking away.

“Then he’s clearly unfit for his job, and now I have to replace him,” he said carelessly.

He went to turn away, but stopped when the boy called after him. “That isn’t fair.”

“It’s not your concern, nor do I care what you see as fair.”

“You can’t just fire him for that.”

“I can, and I will,” Arthur replied haughtily. He was not having some commoner coming around and telling him what to do. “And if you do not leave, I will have you arrested.”

It was meant to be a deterrent, but this boy narrowed his eyes slightly, and looked up at him determinedly. “Who do you think you are, the king?” Mocking his authority.

Arthur looked at him, lip curling. “Yes, actually,” he replied calmly, amusement clear in his tone. The boy paused and frowned at him, apprehension in his eyes.

Arthur smiled sarcastically. “Go on,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

The boy hesitated. Arthur had him arrested. He fired his servant.

He went off to training feeling pretty good about himself.

* * *

Returning to his chambers, Arthur walked alone through the quiet of the castle. It was always so peaceful at night once the servants stopped running around doing their chores and the knights and the lords retired to their rooms. The only people that he passed were the guards on duty, who nodded respectfully as he walked past.

Arthur didn’t acknowledge them, except for Pelleas, who he smiled faintly at. Like Leon, he was a knight who had helped him a lot as a child. As he walked by, he heard footsteps coming up behind him, and he paused, turning around.

Pelleas’ hand was moving to the sword at his waist, which should have sent off alarm bells, but he had desensitised himself to a threat from his own men.

It was only by instinct, by reflex, that Arthur echoed the moment, unaware of it until his hand gripped the hilt. But in the moment that it took to process what was happening, the guard had unsheathed their sword and Arthur hastily retreated, pulling out his own.

The sound of steel against steel echoed through the quiet castle, and it soon brought the sound of footsteps running. Arthur ducked a blow to the head right as another two knights rounded the corner behind him. He had a brief moment of terror; what if these knights were against him too. He could not fight all three of them, not when they had trapped him in a hallway.

That fear was unfounded. They forced the other knight back, disarmed him, pushed him to the ground. Arthur shook, sword gripped in his hand, and looked down at him. Could he not even trust his own men? Could he not expect to be able to walk through his own castle without being attacked by people who had sworn to follow him? Sworn to follow my father, he corrected himself.

“You’re too weak to rule,” Pelleas hissed at him.

He wanted to protest, but in his mind he knew Pelleas was right. His father would have stopped the war before it had started. His father hadn’t had to fight with all the councillors to get them to listen to him.

“Take him to the dungeons,” he said again, and winced at the shaking in his voice. Pelleas heard it too, and his lip curled in contempt, as if that proved him right.

As the guard took him away, slowly Arthur sheathed his sword again, but he kept his grip tightly on the hilt until he was safely in his room. He locked the door behind him and leaned back against it, closing his eyes.

“What am I going to do?” he whispered.

This was different from the other executions that he had faced. This was a knight, someone he knew, and not just some unknown person in the city. But he had to, didn't he? He had no choice in the matter; the law was clear in what happened in attacks on the king’s life.

"I need you, father," he muttered. He would have known what to do. Though Arthur knew what his father would do. He'd follow the law.

Could he get up there and condemn a person he had fought beside? Who had taught him as a child. Could he afford to not? He'd be seen as especially weak if he didn't.

The law was clear, after all...

He opened his eyes and began to pace around his room, biting down on his lip. How many other knights thought similar things? How many others were hiding the desire to kill him? Could he trust any of them?

He wasn't sure he could anymore.

He condemned Pelleas to death. He watched all the knights that came near him carefully, hand always hanging near his sword. If it happened once, it could happen again.

There was a wariness in the knights in training. He saw their sideways looks, could hear their whispers, the judgments. Thinking of what had turned Pelleas against him, and whether that was justified.

He had pulled them through a war, but he was starting to wonder whether he had shaken his hold more than he had secured it.

* * *

He still had to remind himself where it was he sat. When he and Morgana ate together in the main room, by habit he moved to pull out his prince’s chair before reminding himself. Morgana saw the hesitation and smiled kindly at him. He returned it weakly.

“Sire,” Meliodas greeted, stepping into the room. Arthur looked to him questioningly. “There’s been spotting of a druid camp in the Valley of the Kings.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Morgana pause, her fork halfway to her mouth. “Who by?” Arthur asked mildly.

“The patrol that just returned.”

“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully, with a glance to the window. “Have a group sent out at first light to disband the camp.” Although he did not say it, the implications of disband were clear.

“Yes, Sire,” Melidoas said, with a bow, and withdrew from the room.

Arthur returned to his meal, ignoring Morgana, who was staring across at him. She didn’t let him continue to ignore her for long. “What have the druids done to deserve this?” she demanded.

“They broke the law, Morgana,” Arthur said tiredly, picking up his goblet. “I feel like this is not the first time we have had this discussion. The law is clear in this matter. And as king, I will follow it.”

“Then a very poor king you will make,” she said angrily.

He froze, goblet in the air, and looked to her. Slowly he placed it down onto the table and got to his feet. “Then you have no faith in me either?” he asked softly. Guilt flashed momentarily across her face, but she hardened it.

“You’re attacking innocent people, Arthur, please. Think about this.”

“I have thought about it,” he said, turning away from her, and walking to the door. “And my decision stands. No one in this kingdom has any faith in me, it seems. But I am standing by this view.”

“Arthur,” she called out after him, getting to her feet.

He ignored her, but he could hear her following him. Part way down the hallway, out of the ears of the guards at the door, he turned to face her, trying to hide his shaking. If Morgana thought he was going to make a poor king, there was no help for anyone else.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said, stopping before him, and then paused. “Actually. I did. You cannot be a good king if you kill your people, how could you ever hope to be? But you can be a good king, Arthur.”

“How?” he demanded of her, voice raising. The guards at the end of the hall glanced towards them, and he forced it quieter. “If I don’t follow the laws, how can I be a good king? According to you, if I do follow them, I can’t be a good king. I can’t do both.”

“You have to be true to yourself. You have to do what you think is right.”

“Then I think this is right,” he said. “Magic is an evil, it must be stopped. And if setting a raid on the druid camp is a step towards that goal, so be it.”

He turned to walk away again, but not before he saw her expression drop. He paused briefly a few steps from her, expecting her to say something, but she didn’t. So he continued.

* * *

Days later, he turned a corner and nearly walked straight into the boy from the days before. He glanced up, saw it was Arthur, and steadily continued on his way.

"That's not how you address me," Arthur called mockingly after him, although few of the servants he did pass acknowledged him. "Now, don't walk away." Reluctantly the boy came to a stop and turned around to face him. "Just what I was looking for," he continued. "Someone to collect my lunch." When he was in between servants, his mealtimes became sporadic, as, when it wasn't someone's official duty, no one took it up.

The boy frowned at him. "I'm not a servant."

"You were so keen to days ago, what happened," he then frowned lightly. "What are you?" He was a new face to Arthur, and if he was walking unaccompanied through the castle... He was either there for a reason, or he wasn't meant to be there.

"I was delivering something for Gaius."

"So you are a servant," the boy began to protest, but Arthur waved his hand dismissively, going to move past him. "Get my lunch."

The boy continued to protest, but Arthur paid him no mind. Not until a short while later, when it became clear that the boy was not bringing his lunch. He could have just asked a passing servant to get it, but instead, he headed down to the physician’s quarters.

He passed Morgana on the way, and pointedly looked away from her. He heard her sigh and a brief falter of her heels against the stone, but he continued on without saying anything.

“Sire,” Gaius said in surprise when he entered his room. “Can I help you with anything?”

“That boy that has been helping you,” he said with a glance around the room.

Gaius’ eyebrows pulled together. “Merlin?” he questioned apprehensively. “Has he given you a cause to be upset with him?”

“Merlin, yes,” he said, drawing out the name. “Where is he?”

“I sent him to deliver a potion for me, Sire,” he said, frowning. “Why do you seek him?”

“I was going to hire him, actually,” he said. The thought hadn’t occurred to him before, but he lacked a servant, and as Merlin clearly did not wish to help him, he could solve that problem. “You can spare him, of course?” he questioned, knowing that even if he couldn’t, Gaius would not refuse.

“Yes,” he said slowly, frowning at him. “I can. I’ve managed so far taking time out of my work to do the menial job of delivering potions, I could start again.”

Arthur looked at him for a few long moments, but otherwise did not acknowledge his snipe. “Then send him to me when he returns,” he said, turning for the door. “With my lunch. I hope I shall not have to come looking for him, Gaius.”

“Of course not, Sire,” the physician replied quietly.

It took a while, but there did come a knock at his door. “Enter,” Arthur called, not looking up from the papers that were sprawled out in front of him, trying to make headway on them. He needed another of the councillors. His grasp on rationing was weak.

Although the door opened, there came no other noise, so he raised his head. The boy – Merlin - stood in the doorway, a tray of food in his hands, his eyes narrowed. Arthur wondered what Gaius had said to make him turn up.

“Ah, Merlin,” Arthur drawled, amused at the irritated twitch of the boy. “Set it down on the table.”

He did, but then continued to stare at him, expression defiant. Arthur looked back and raised an eyebrow, waiting to see what an unprompted discussion would bring. “Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

“I need a servant,” he replied, getting to his feet and moving from his desk to the table. “As you are responsible for the loss of my last one, I decided you were adequate.”

“You didn’t have to fire the last one.”

“But I did,” he said calmly. “And now it seems that I need a replacement.”

“Gaius needs my help,” he replied.

Arthur looked at him for a few moments, picking at his food. “That isn’t my concern. I am hiring you. You will do your job, understood?” Merlin was clearly not pleased, but he did not say anything. Arthur continued to look at him as he ate, lip curling in amusement.

* * *

Arthur was not sure if Merlin was intending to be a poor servant or he was honestly just useless at his job. Maybe he thought if he was terrible, Arthur would fire him. He didn’t fire him for that reason.

* * *

 

 “What happened to him?” Arthur asked, bobbing down next to the sickly body on the floor, skin white and veins protruding, taking care not to touch him.

“We’re unsure, Sire,” Meliodas replied softly. “I came to swap shifts and…”

He pulled his eyebrows together. “Get Gaius,” he said with a gesture at Merlin, not taking his eyes off of the body. It was unlike anything that he had seen before, though that did not mean much… He was unnerved to find Gaius looking just as troubled as he moved around the body, inspecting it. “What is it, Gaius?”

“I am unsure, Sire,” he replied. “I got called to a similar case this morning… but I am unsure of the cause.”

“You have no idea?” he questioned, and caught the moment of hesitance before Gaius’ no. “Tell me,” he ordered, looking towards the body. Whatever this illness it was, it had to be stopped.

“From the little information that I have, I would infer that it is sorcery, Sire.”

His frown deepened, and he swallowed hard. Of course it was. How much sorcery must he face in such a short period of time? “Then we must find the sorcerer that has started it,” he said, glancing up to Meliodas. “I want a search of the city for the cause. And an increase of the patrols in the town.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“Go,” the knight nodded and withdrew. “Merlin, help Gaius where you can so he can find a cure.” Merlin blinked at him, but then nodded. “If there are any changes, I want to hear about them.”

“Of course.”

He couldn’t bear to stand still and wait. So he gathered up one of the patrols and led it through the castle. Morgana and her servant – whatever her name was – startled when he came barging in.

“Arthur,” Morgana protested loudly, frowning at him. Talking to him for the first time since she had accused him of becoming a poor king. “What are you doing?”

“Searching all the rooms in the castle for signs of sorcery,” he responded, as his men began upturning the things in her room.

“Again?” she demanded of him. “They don’t have to upturn my whole room. What are you expecting to find? Do you honestly think I’m hiding magical items?”

He didn’t. Though that wasn’t the point. “We’re searching every room in the castle, Morgana,” he said. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”

“Why? What prompted this?”

“There is an illness going around. We do not know exactly what is causing it, but Gaius believes it could be rooted in magic. We’re searching for the sorcerer before any more people die.”

“Oh,” she said frowning. Her servant – Guinevere? – hovered behind her, looking troubled. “Is there no cure?”

“Not that we have found. Gaius is working on it,” he glanced around the room at the guards who were still rifling through her belongings. “We’re finished here,” he ordered.

“Arthur,” Morgana stopped him before he walked out. “Good luck.” He nodded at her and withdrew.

He got a similar demand from Gaius, questioning what he was doing with his handful of knights. “Searching for any sign of magic,” he responded. As his knights began upturning the room, he came over to investigate the papers sprawled over his desk. Merlin who was sitting on the stairs with a book in his lap watched him.

“You’re welcome to read them,” Gaius offered. “They’re all my scientific studies.”

“All of these books?” Arthur questioned, waving to the stacks around the room.

“Yes.”

He glanced around them and nodded. He found nothing in Merlin’s room except for confirmation that the boy really was hopeless at keeping things tidy, and wasn’t just doing it to irritate him.

“No headway?” he questioned Gaius.

“Not yet. The fewer interruptions we have, the faster it will go.”

“If you find anything, please come find me,” he said, looking troubled as he called the men off. He was unsure what else he could do but hope for a cure and hope that his men would find the sorcerer. Was there anything else that he could do?

The next morning brought more deaths.

“We found no sign of magic in the town,” Leon said, falling into step beside him as he made his way through the castle to Gaius’ quarters. He had personally scoured the castle. If it wasn’t there, and it wasn’t in the town… He couldn’t search the whole kingdom for the cause.

He rubbed at his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Check again,” he said hopelessly. “Take down records of everyone that has fallen to this sickness. Maybe the people that are spared, or the families of…” It was hopeless, he knew. The person would be well hidden; the hope now was for a cure. When he entered Gaius’ rooms and saw his tired expression, he knew he was not in luck.

“Nothing?” he asked desperately.

Gaius shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sire.”

Merlin was sitting on the stairs again, eyebrows furrowed, quickly flicking through a book, barely enough time to register what was on each page.

Distressed, Arthur ran his hand through his hair. “If there are any breakthroughs...”

“Of course, Sire.”

* * *

He jerked violently to the door of the great hall when he heard it open. “Did he find…?” he asked hopefully to Merlin, who stood in the doorway, holding a tray of food.

He shook his head, gesturing to the tray. “Just bringing your dinner.”

“Oh,” he said softly, waving his hand at the table before resuming his pacing, heart sinking. How many deaths would the next morning bring? “I thought I told you to help Gaius,” he said as Merlin came and placed the tray of food down on the table.

“I took a moment off, someone had to feed you. We know how cranky you are when you haven’t been fed.”

He hadn’t even thought of it, too preoccupied with the plague spreading through his kingdom to think of eating. He nodded his thanks. “Gaius has no…?”

“Not currently. We don’t even know how it is spreading yet.”

“You must have some idea,” he said, stopping his pacing to look at him desperately. “Anything that will help, even a little…” with all of Gaius’ knowledge, all of those books and papers in his room, that he couldn’t find a cure, or a cause…

Merlin shook his head, biting down on his lip.

Arthur’s shoulders slumped.

Merlin stood there for a little bit longer before he left, bumping into Morgana in the doorway. “How is he?” she asked, voice soft and concerned.

Arthur turned to look out the window, pretending that he wasn’t listening, that he couldn’t hear. “Not well.” There was a few moment of silence. “I have to get back to Gaius.”

When Morgana moved closer, he turned to look at her. Wordlessly she crossed the rest of the space between them and hugged him tightly. “I don’t know to stop this, Morgana,” he whispered.

“Shh,” she said, rubbing his arm and tightening her hug. “You’re trying. That’s all anyone can ask.”

He pulled away from her,] and shook his head. “No, no it’s not. I’m the King, I’m meant to protect the people…”

“You can’t protect them from a plague, Arthur,” she said, looking at him firmly. “That isn’t in your power. You’re a king, not a god,” she reached out to console him, but he pulled away.

“I’m a child. They are all right, I’m not strong enough for this.” They’d faced a war and a plague since he had become king; he’d scraped through the war, but he did not think he had what he needed to pull through this. There may not be anyone left to rule once it had spread through.

“You are,” she said. “Arthur, you are. Don’t blame yourself for this. This sickness, this plague, it isn’t your fault.”

“I just want to be able to help…” he whispered. “To be able to protect them all. My people are dying, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“You can eat and you can rest. You are no good to Camelot if you get sick too, and wearing yourself down trying to figure this out won’t help.”

He sighed, looking to the food that Merlin had left on the table. The thought of eating made him feel sick, but reluctantly he went and sat down, slowly picking at it.

“Get some rest,” Morgana said softly, squeezing his arm and leaning down to kiss his cheek. “You’ll need it.”

“I will.”

She smiled softly at him and withdrew.

He continued picking at his food, pulling the bread apart in his hands until he was left with a pile of crumbs. He dropped the crumbs from his hand and sighed, resting his head in his hands.

When he raised his head, he noticed immediately the room was darker, the torches on the wall having gone out. He froze and slowly turned his head. Seeing only vaguely, someone standing by the pillar in the room, he jerked to his feet, going for his sword. How had they gotten in here? He hadn’t heard anyone entering, and there were guards at the door.

The moment he was on his feet, he felt the sword ripped out his hand, and it clattered to the floor, the sound harsh in his ears. There was no movement outside the door to indicate that the guards had heard.

His eyes moved from the sword a few feet from him, to the sorceress, the gold fading from her eyes. “You!” he exclaimed. The last time he had seen this face was when holding the dead body of his father. “What are you doing here?” he snarled, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Your father’s son, aren’t you?” she commented, watching him with mild amusement. “Straight to your weapons, yelling angrily.”

“Like you would know,” he retorted, eyes flickering to his sword again, judging whether he would be able to grab it without taking his eyes off of her. “What would you know of my father? Other than that you killed him.”

Her lip curled. “What would I know?” she questioned softly, with a hint of mocking. “Oh, Arthur Pendragon…I used to be his friend, didn’t you know?”

He stalled, anger turning into confusion. “You were his friend…?” he asked quietly. That didn’t make any sense, his father would never have been friends with a sorceress. “Liar,” he almost shouted.

“No. Ask Gaius if you do not believe me. Ask him about Nimueh.”

He was sure that this sorceress was just messing with him, trying to make him doubt. His father would never have, it was inconceivable to imagine such a thing. He had spent his life dedicated to fighting sorcery. “Then why did you kill him?” he demanded, hating that his voice still shook when he spoke of his death.

“Because he was killing us,” she said simply. “Your father threw me from this court and hunted my kind down. It was unforgivable.”

“You have magic, you deserved it,” he said, moving slowly towards his sword.

Her eyes flashed angrily, briefly golden. Instinctively he stopped into defence stance, even without his weapon. “I was done when I killed your father,” she said conversationally. “I had my revenge for his crimes. But then you stood right in his place, and that I cannot let go.”

He took another step back, towards his sword. “You’re going to kill me.”

“You are not destined to die at my hands, Arthur Pendragon.”

His eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “Then why…?”

“You are not destined to die by me, but your people can. And they will,” her gaze turned pointedly to the window. “And they have.” Arthur did not have to follow the movement, he knew what she was looking at, the bodies lining the courtyard.

His stomach dropped as he stepped back onto the metal of his sword. “You did this?” It should not have surprised him. He knew the cause was magical, they’d spent the last few days searching for this magical source. But the fact that it was the sorceress who had killed his father, who was now coming and bringing more harm...

“I did.”

Without looking away from her, he got his foot under his sword and kicked it up. Narrowly missing the blade, he awkwardly grasped the hilt before twirling it around to adjust his grip. “Why?” he demanded, pointing it towards her.

Her eyes flickered to the blade in amusement, but she did not fling it away again. “Didn’t I answer that, Pendragon?” she questioned. “You have followed your father’s footsteps, murdering countless people,” her lip curled in derision. “This is what you get in return for murdering my kind, the death of your own people.”

“That’s not fair, they’ve done nothing,” he hissed, stepping towards her. “Take back this spell.”

“No.”

“Take. It. Back.” The moment he stepped too close, her eyes flashed, and he was flung back into the table. He winced at the pain that flared in his back, but kept his hold on his weapon.

“You better stop this Pendragon,” she threatened as he gripped onto the table and pulled himself back up to his feet. “Before it’s too late.”

She did not give him the chance to respond before she had disappeared. He turned around the room a few times, weapon raised to attack, squinting into the dark. Slowly he lowered his sword, rubbing at his back with his free hand. That noise should have brought the guards in. No one else should have been in the room.

When he pulled open the doors, the guards glanced at him. “Sire?” Sir Balan questioned, glancing to the sword in his hand. “Is anything the matter?”

Arthur frowned and glanced over his shoulder into the council room. “No,” he replied, a little vaguely. “No, nothings the matter.” They continued to look at him concerned, which was not helped when he suddenly headed off to the physician’s quarters. Nimueh’s comment of being friends with his father ringing in his head.

With no regards to the hour, he shoved Gaius’ door open, but found both him and Merlin awake and at the table. “Arthur!” Merlin exclaimed. “We know how to stop it.”

“How?” he asked.

“It’s being caused by the water. The water source has been poisoned. By an Anfac.”

“An Anfac…?” he asked slowly.

“It’s a magical creature,” Gaius said.

“So how do we stop it?”

Before Gaius had the chance to enter, the door banged open again. Arthur spun around, going for his sword but paused upon seeing Morgana. “Gaius,” she said, with wide eyes, voice shaking. “It’s Gwen… she’s caught it…please tell me you have something.”

“We believe so,” he said, and Morgana sighed in relief, slumping down. “But not a cure yet,” he continued. “Only the cause.”

Her eyes widened again, the tension returning to her body. Arthur reached out to her and grabbed hold of her hand. She gripped his tightly. “You can’t… cure her?”

“We hope that ridding the cause will stop the plague and cure those who have been infected, but are not yet dead.”

“But you don’t know,” Arthur said, filling in the gap of silence.

“We don’t know,” Gaius confirmed quietly.

“There must be something… please… some way to help her.”

“I’m afraid not. Not of yet,” he glanced to Merlin, who was frowning, his eyes on Morgana. “The moment we do…”

“It will be too late.”

There was a long pause, and Morgana crumpled in on herself. Arthur pulled her closer, and hugged her. “We’ll stop what’s causing it,” he told her as she pressed her face into her shoulder. “It’s a magical illness, that should stop the hold.” His knowledge of magic was rudimentary, and he was not at all convinced that ending the cause would create the cure, but it was all that he had to offer to her, and it seemed to calm her.

“How do we stop it?” he asked Gaius, rubbing her arm comfortingly.

Gaius looked momentarily at Merlin. “You must go down to the water source and kill the Anfac that is residing there.”

“Then let’s go,” he paused, suddenly remembering the reason that he had come down here in the first place. “Gaius, when this is done, I want a word with you.” At this moment, killing this creature was the most important thing to do.

“Of course, Sire.”

“Morgana,” he said softly. “You go back to,” he paused, searching for the name. “Guinevere.”

She shook her head, pulling out of the hug. “I am coming with you.” Despite the redness in her eyes and the shake in her hands, her voice was clear and determined. He didn’t argue with her.

 

                                                                 

* * *

The creature died, and, with it, the curse was lifted, restoring those who had been dying back to full health. But it could not bring the dead back to life. Arthur was just glad for Morgana’s sake that her servant had gotten better. He knew nothing of the girl, but he would have done anything to avoid Morgana having to grieve for another person she cared about.

Even if he didn’t quite understand how she could care that much for a servant.

* * *

“What do you know of Nimueh?”

Gaius stilled, and he frowned at him. Hands folded behind his back, Arthur stared calmly back. The silence grew, but he did not break it, resisting the urge to fidget or move. “Where did you hear that name?”

“That was not my question, Gaius,” he said gently, but firmly, continuing to look at him expectantly. This hesitance to talk about her; what did it mean?

“She’s a sorceress,” he said finally. “The one who…”

“Who – who killed my father.” It had been so long, it shouldn’t still hurt to say. At Gaius’ nod, he continued. “How did she know my father?” I used to be his friend, didn’t you know? He still couldn’t imagine how his father could ever have been friends with someone like that…

“How do you know they knew each other?” Gaius questioned, frown deepening.

“Answer my question, Gaius,” he said sharply. He did not know why he didn’t want to admit that he had spoken to her. That she had appeared in the throne room, could have killed him so easily and hadn’t. Why hadn’t she?

“Nimueh used to be a member of the court. Years ago. Before…before you were born.”

He nodded, mulling that over. “And then Father found out she had magic? And that’s why she’s no longer part of it?”

There was a moment of hesitation. “Yes.”

Arthur picked up on the hesitation. “You’re lying,” he did not phrase it as a question, and with an expression that he learnt from his father, he stared at him expectantly. There was more to this, there had to be.

“Magic was not illegal when she was a member of the court.”

His eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “Father was not always fighting against magic?” he asked slowly.

“No. He wasn’t,” Gaius seemed reluctant to speak, averting his eyes from the young Pendragon.

“Then what made him?”

There was a long pause. “Magic killed your mother.”

Arthur’s shoulders slumped, legs shaking he practically fell into a nearby stool. “Magic killed…?” he asked softly, looking at him imploringly. Why hadn’t he heard that? Why didn’t he know? With how against magic his father was, it would have made sense to be told it, rather than to believe it had been through childbirth, that he had caused it.

“Yes. She was banished from the court when your father outlawed magic.”

“Who is Nimueh?” When Gaius blinked in confusion he elaborated. “Who is she now? What does she do?”

“She’s a priestess of the old religion.”

* * *

“And where are we going?” Merlin asked as he stood in the middle of Arthur’s room, pulling things out of his cupboard into a leather bag.

Arthur, who was leaning over a scroll of parchment on his desk, slowly looked up at him. “We?” he questioned slowly, and then frowned at how Merlin was roughly balling his things into a bag. “You’re not going.”

“Of course I am.”

He sighed exaggeratedly at him. “Don’t you know how this works yet? I give the orders, you follow them.”

“Yes. And I’m coming with you.”

* * *

The knights were once again paying visits to every house in the city. Red cloaks filled the streets, moving from door to door, questioning the occupants of every house. Arthur’s eyes trailed them as he and Merlin rode through the city, hearing snatches of the conversations.

“Did you lose anyone in the plague?”  
“Who?”  
“How many?”  
“Who lives here?”  
“My son, my wife, my father.”

Arthur would return to the city to a census, to find the amount that the plague had killed. From there they would have to make adjustments to taxes and the structure of the city, to find out what roles were now lacking.

One lady opened the door to a knight, a young child hanging onto her leg. Upon seeing the knight, her eyes widened slightly, and she pushed the child back into the room where he could not be seen. She visibly relaxed when asked about whether she had lost people in the plague.

He continued riding so did not hear the answer. But he wondered what it said when you were scared to open the door to a knight, a person that was meant to protect you.

* * *

He pulled his horse to a stop at the edge of a lake. He looked out across the water, to an island in the middle, a broken stone building in the middle. Wordlessly, he dismounted his horse, looping the reins around a tree branch so the mare would not run off.

“Arthur?” Merlin asked uncertainly, as he echoed the movement.

“Yes?” he returned, ignoring that Merlin was not meant to be calling him by his first name. Repeated mentions that the proper way to address him was at first your highness, and then sire, went right over his head. He had given up, getting too tired of having to repeat himself.

“Where are we going?”

Arthur gestured across the water, turning back to the horse to unclip the saddle bag and swing it across his shoulder. When he turned back at the water, he noticed the small wooden boat tied to the shore. “That makes it easier,” he murmured, pleased to see there were also paddles.

Merlin’s sideways look suggested that he didn’t want to think about what Arthur’s plan would have been if there hadn’t been a convenient boat tied there.

“Come on,” Arthur called to him, pushing the boat into the water. Merlin unsteadily stepped into it and sat down on the other side. Arthur pushed off the ground, and leapt into the boat, making it shake dangerously. He gripped onto the edges to stop himself tipping over and carefully settled himself in.

He glanced at Merlin, and then dumped both of the oars into the water. Water splashed up at them, causing Merlin to make a face. Arthur laughed and purposely sent more up at him. Merlin spluttered, wiping at his face. “That’s not fair,” he protested. “I don’t have an oar.”

“Do you want one?” he asked, holding it out. “If you take it, you have to paddle.”

Merlin eyed the paddle for a few long moments and then shook his head, settling himself back down in his seat. “Thought so,” Arthur said, splashing him again before starting to paddle.

He laughed again as Merlin made a disgruntled noise, but then smiled.

His strokes were uneven and slow. He hissed in frustration, as he spent more time righting the boat than he spent moving across the lake. Learning to row was pointless; there was barely any need of it in a landlocked country, but as he slowly rowed them across, he wished that he had learnt.

The second half of the lake was easier, which he attributed to finally gaining a rhythm.

The boat gently bumped against the shore. Arthur clambered out before Merlin followed, tripping on the edge of the boat. Quickly, Arthur reached out to grab him. “Thanks,” Merlin muttered as he regained his balance. Arthur nodded in return, and loosely gripping the hilt of his sword, he began moving towards the ruins.

Gaius had said this place once used to be the centre of magic. Looking at it, it was hard to believe. The walls were crumbling and the roof had fallen in, letting the soft sunlight flood in. He glanced back at Merlin, who was looking around in awe.

“Arthur Pendragon.”

He jumped, and spun around, instinctively withdrawing his sword as he did. Behind him, where only moments before he had been standing, stood a blonde haired woman. She eyed him speculatively. “Who are you?” he questioned.

She did not respond. “What are you doing here? This temple is long torn down, you can bring no more harm to this place.” She spoke softly, with a reverence and a pain in her voice.

“I am not here to bring harm,” he responded. She began to circle him, and he moved with her. Merlin was outside of their circling, watching them both with his brow pulled together. “I came to find Nimueh.”

“Nimueh?” she questioned, tilting her head to the side. “Why would you be looking for Nimueh?”

“I want answers.”

She laughed, but there was no humour in it. “You must be truly desperate, to seek her out for answers.”

“I just want the truth.” It did not escape him that he was seeking out a sorcerer for the truth after all these years hearing that they were liars, he was wilfully ignoring that. But Gaius was not giving him the whole of it; there was something in his story that did not make sense. He needed his father, only he could answer these questions; Arthur would trust the answer from him.

“We all want a lot of things, Pendragon. Not all of them are available to us.”

“Is she here?” he demanded.

“What are you willing to trade?”

“I am not bargaining with a sorceress.”

“My answers do not come freely.” Arthur and Merlin spun around to face Nimueh. Realising that that action placed his backs to the blonde, he turned and backed up trying to keep them both in his vision. He looked across to Merlin, thinking that he should move to him, if anything started Merlin would need protecting.

“Well?” Nimueh questioned. “What will you give for this knowledge?”

“What do you ask for?” What could he give to a sorceress that he was willing to give?

“That the next person your knights arrest for magic, you let go.”

He squinted at her. “That would be going against my laws.” It did not surprise him. A sorceress would want him to disregard his own rules, to be the maker of his own anarchy, especially the magic laws.

“That is my term. If you want the truth, you must swear to that.”  
Looking at her, he was reminded of his father’s death. That he was dead before he had any chance to defend himself. He knew what his father would say. That he should never compromise with regards to magic, regardless of what could be gained.

His eyes flickered to the blonde, and he thought inexplicably of Morgana. Perhaps it was her expression, or her stance, or the gleam in her eyes. He thought of her demanding justice and clemency, the fire and passion in her eyes. She would have risked it, even if she didn’t advocate for magic as she did.

“You are destined for great things, Arthur Pendragon,” Nimueh said, and he turned back to face her. He frowned, thinking of the dragon underneath the castle. Merlin’s head slowly turned to look at her, eyebrows pulled together. “But you cannot achieve it like this.”

“And I can achieve it through bargaining with you?”

“It’s a start.”

He would have thought she was just trying to rattle him, convince him to listen, if it wasn’t for the echo of the dragons’ words. Was it something that was known in the magical world? It seemed ludicrous, even as a king, for him to be important enough that he had a destiny known throughout the magical community. But there was a part of him that wanted that, to achieve something, to be more than his father’s son.

“I accept your terms.”

She smiled, but there was no cheer in it. “What are your questions?”

“I want to know about my mother’s death.”

She regarded him for a few moments. “Your mother was unable to have a child through conventional means. So your father turned to me, pleaded with me to use my magic to help. But magic demands balance; to create a life, a life must be lost. Your father accepted those terms. Your mother was the cost of you.”

 

                                               

 

“Arthur…” Merlin said softly as Arthur silently rowed them back to the shore. He glanced up at him, and Merlin startled a little at his glower. “Are you okay?”

“Fine!” he said, louder than he intended. His father’s choices had killed his mother… he had spent the rest of his life targeting magic for his own mistakes. But magic had killed his mother, but it wouldn’t have if his father hadn’t… He had set out to kill people with magic to ease his own conscious.

He continued to row calmly as Merlin watched him with a concerned expression. “Are you sure?” He nodded sharply. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” he said sharply, and Merlin frowned. Arthur ignored his repeated attempts to pull him out of his thoughts, and they rode back to the city in silence. Once there, he headed straight for the crypts. Not bothering to light a torch, he slowly walked down the steps, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Footsteps echoing on the stone floor, he walked past generations of Camelot royalty. He stopped at his father’s, the only Pendragon by blood. Arthur thought of the stories that he had told, how he had won the kingdom, brought it from a place of chaos to one of peace. He had always claimed that the magic laws were pivotal to that, that banishing that evil had brought stability.

But then was it only after the magic laws had been implemented that Camelot was peaceful? Or had the beginning years of his reign been peaceful too? How much had the laws done?

He knelt beside the tomb and was jerked back to the day of his father’s death. Doubling over, he pressed the palm of his hands against the cold stone floor with a weak sob.

Magic killed his father and his mother. But had his father been a part of that?

He wasn’t sure if that meant that his father had been wrong about magic.

* * *

He balked when Leon told him the numbers. “That many?” he asked quietly, taking the census from Leon’s hands. He unraveled the top and scanned through it.

“That many,” Leon affirmed with a grimace. “It’s turned into total disorder. With the positions and the jobs that have become empty, with no one qualified enough to fill them…”

Arthur groaned and put the scroll down, running his hands through his hair.

“We’ll also need to readjust the tax again. We don’t have enough people for the numbers we calculated earlier…”

“We’re going to have to raise it,” Arthur finished with a grimace. “The people are going to hate that…”

He had been faintly aware of this aspect of kingship, but the magnitude of it surprised him. The paperwork, the calculating, the careful politics. He had been expecting as king to be able to do as he pleased, but he had found that that was not the case. His frail hold on the kingdom would be lost without the support of the upper class.

“The people in the town can’t afford a tax raise. Even without the plague that would have destroyed some of their livelihoods… they won’t have the money.”

“But can we afford to keep it how it is?” Leon questioned.

“Probably not,” he said with a sigh. “Unless we raise the taxes for the upper class, and leave it as it is for the lower class, or bump it a tiny bit up. The nobles won’t be pleased though.” He couldn’t risk upsetting them too badly, but he was not sure there was an alternative here. That cursed plague that had caused this… “I’ll think on it,” he said finally. “That is all, Sir Leon.”

“Of course, Sire,” Leon said with a bow, before withdrawing.

Arthur leaned back in his chair, frowning.

If only the plague had never happened, there would never have been all those deaths or the disruption to the society. He cursed magic, that had allowed Nimueh to so easily poison his city. If magic had been successfully banished than it never would have happened. If all those with magic had been killed or exiled, than his people would have been safe.

But those actions had caused the attack, according to Nimueh. The plague was revenge against the attacks and executions of magic users. Nimueh claimed that if he had not done those, than she would not have attacked.

Though the blame kept going backwards. He was attempting to wipe Camelot of magic because magic had killed his father. Magic had killed his father because he had fought against it. He had fought against it because magic killed his wife.

He groaned and put his head down on the desk.

Magic killed my father. But did he deserve it?

“Arthur?”

He jerked upright and winced at the crick in his neck. Merlin stood in the doorway frowning at him, holding a basket of clean washing in his arms. “Yes?” he asked, trying to sound like he hadn’t just been lying on his desk having a crisis.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing at his face.

Merlin nodded and came into the room, beginning to sort and put away the clean clothes. “Is it because of what happened on the island?” he asked hesitantly, after a while of silence.

“That’s not your concern,” he said curtly, and Merlin ducked his head, returning to his work. Arthur watched as he silently worked, frowning. “What did you think of it?”

“What do I think of it?” he asked slowly. Holding Arthur’s favourite brown jacket.

“Do you think my father’s laws on magic are reasonable, considering what happened?” He did not know why he was asking Merlin. Maybe it was because he had been there, and he knew exactly what Arthur was referring to. He wouldn’t have to tell another person what had been found out.

He did not answer immediately, turning away again so he could hang the jacket into the cupboard. “I can understand why he took those actions,” Merlin said slowly, choosing each word with care. “But I don’t think the actions were reasonable, or excusable.”

“How so?”

Merlin moved over closer to the desk that Arthur was sitting at. “He was grieving and angry, and that makes people lash out. But hundreds of people have been murdered for that, people who did nothing wrong except be born differently,” the hesitance had left his voice, and he was speaking animatedly and clearly. “Your own feelings don’t justify murdering others, and especially not when your actions began it. That’s not excusable. He did something that he regretted. And held the magical community accountable. It’s hypocritical, and I’m not surprised the magical community fought back.”

“You feel very strongly about this,” Arthur commented, watching him with a frown.

He faltered, and then shrugged. “I just think people should be held accountable for their actions, and not held accountable for things they did not do.”

“It’s not just, is it?” Arthur mused.

 

* * *

 

 “I don’t know what to do, Morgana,” Arthur said softly, as they walked through the courtyard. “I have no idea what to think.” The sun was too bright for the discord he was feeling.

She slipped her arm through his and squeezed his hand comfortingly. “Isn’t the fact that you are conflicted show that it doesn’t just go one way or another?” He frowned, looking to her. “You’re trying to prove that magic is wholly bad or wholly good. Why can’t it be both?”

“What if they are lying to me?” he asked, voicing his fear. “I can’t speak to Father to have it confirmed, they could just want me to view ill of him, so they can get their way…”

“You spoke to Gaius didn’t you? He confirmed it.”

Arthur sighed. “Yes, I suppose he did,” he glanced at her. “Would you like to go riding?” He needed to get out of the city, to forget for a few moments the weight that was on his shoulders. As a child he had fantasized about what it would be like to be king, glossing over that his father would have to die before that happened. It had always been easy in those fantasies; he had been a hero, bringing peace and justice to his country.

He had never imagined it to be a constant heaviness, a constant feeling of dread. Facing the judgment of his people, his councilors, his knights, and those outside his realm, such as Cenred and Nimueh.

It had never been like this.

“I would love to,” she responded, smiling faintly at him. They turned around, heading for the stables. He declined a knight’s offering to accompany them; that would go against the desire to get away from it all, to forget. Morgana did not count in that.

He did not think until later, what it appeared to that knight, that he wanted to be alone with Morgana.

“I’ll race you to the stream,” Morgana declared once they were outside the city walls. Before he had a chance to respond, she dug her heels into her horse and sped off.

He gave an exasperated shake of his head and raced off after her. He blamed the fact that she had a head start when she reached the steam first, laughing, looking back at him. Morgana said it was her superior riding skill.

“You had a head start,” he reminded her stubbornly, as he dismounted, leading his horse to the stream to let him take a drink.

“Yes, that’s it,” she said sarcastically, still laughing. She had taken off her shoes and pulled her skirts up, stood ankle deep in the water.

“It definitely is,” he said, watching her.

She smiled. “And last time, when you had the head start, was…?” she questioned, with a mocking slowness.

“Luck,” he responded immediately. She laughed again, and this time he couldn’t help joining in.

“You’re such a –“ He held up his hand to stop her, and as she fell silent, he could hear rustling nearby. He slowly moved to his horse, to grab his sword from where it was attached to the saddle. He had just reached it when three men burst through the bushes.

He grabbed his sword and went to meet them apprehensively. He was quick enough to keep them back, but it was harder to permanently disarm them, with two others right behind him.

Morgana was slowly edging away, with no weapon of her own to be any use. He knew she would berate him for that later, state that if she’d have been allowed to carry a weapon, she would have been able to help.

A fourth person came through the bushes, pausing at the edge to take in what was going on. Arthur groaned. Another person was more than he could handle.

But the person decided that outnumbered, as Arthur was in greater need of his aid, and lurched in to help. Between them, beating the three men was easy. As soon as they realized that they could get hurt or killed in this, they fled.

“Thank you,” Arthur said to the man as Morgana moved back across to them.

“You’re welcome. I heard the commotion, came to investigate.”

“Glad you did.”

“We wouldn’t have needed more help if you let me carry a sword,” Morgana interjected, pulling her shoes hastily onto her feet.

Arthur rolled his eyes. Right on cue. “We’ve been over this.”

“I can fight, you know I can. If I’d been allowed to keep it up I’d be really good. I used to be really good.”

“I’m not doing this again, Morgana,” he turned back to the incomer. “You fight well, where did you learn?” He hoped for a noble born, someone that he could recruit into his knights. He needed more knights like that.

The answer disappointed him. “I taught myself largely.” No noble born would have taught themselves; they would have had the best teachers their fathers could buy, or would have come to the capital to learn.

“Well taught,” he responded, trying to keep his disappointment out of his tone.

“Thank you,” there was a pause. “I’m Lancelot.”

“Arthur.” There was no flicker of recognition in the other. Either he did not know the name of the king of the land, or he did not connect it with the boy standing before him. Arthur did not enlighten him. “What brings you here, Lancelot?” he questioned. It was impossible to question every person who entered Camelot of their motives, but if he had the chance to ensure they meant no harm, he would.

“I am heading for Camelot. I seek to be a knight.”

Next to him, Morgana grimaced, presuming, like Arthur, that he was not noble born. “Why Camelot?” he asked. The explanation of Camelot’s first code could come after his curiosity was satisfied.

“I hear many good things of the knights of Camelot. It is said they are the best in the land.”

He couldn’t help but smile proudly at hearing such praise about his knights. “They are,” he agreed. Beside him Morgana snorted, and just smiled when he looked at her. “Unfortunately,” he said turning back to him. “You can only become a knight of Camelot if you are noble born.”

Lancelot’s face fell, and Arthur was proven right that he was not nobility. “Why is that?”

“It’s the First Code of Camelot,” he explained, echoing what his father had told him years ago. “It ensures that everyone that becomes knights are sworn men to the king, so he can trust them.” Though he thought of some of his knights, who gave him side-eyed looks as he passed, questioned his authority and his ability to rule behind his back. He did not trust everyone who was a sworn knight of Camelot. In fact he trusted less than those he didn’t.

“And even those that sweat cannot become knights?” he questioned, voice full of dismay.

Arthur nodded. “Only nobility can become knights.”

“And there’s no likelihood of that changing?” he asked desperately.

The question surprised him. He had never thought of that, that there was a possibility to change that. He had always perceived it to be something permanent. He supposed that the power to change such things was now in his hands, whether he chose to. He frowned. “I don’t know,” he said honestly, and was surprised at himself. Morgana’s sideways glance, eyebrows raising, showed that she was too.

“I guess you wouldn’t know,” he muttered, hand turning on the hilt of his sword at his waist.

“If anyone would, I would.” When Lancelot looked at him questioningly, Arthur explored. “Arthur Pendragon. King of Camelot.” It did not feel as awkward on his tongue as it had used to.

Lancelot blinked in surprise and immediately bowed. “Your majesty.” There was a pause as the two men looked at each other. Arthur could tell the question on his lips, wondering whether there could be any change. But he did not ask it, and Arthur did not answer it.

“Let us accompany you into the city,” Arthur said. A glance around showed that the horses had bolted at the fighting. These two were not war horses, but bred to be fast.

“Thank you,” he said graciously, and then glanced at him. “I hear rumours of your skill,” Questioning whether these rumours were true, or spread to create power in such a young king.

Against his better judgement he answered. “Would you like to spar?”

“You’ll spar with the stranger but not with me?” Morgana questioned, looking unimpressed with him. He ignored her as Lancelot withdrew his sword, and they circled each other. Morgana went to go sit on a log.

It was refreshing to spar with someone new. He was beginning to learn the tricks of his knights, and they his.

Lancelot was not fazed by Arthur’s twirl of his sword. He watched him patiently, waiting for his moment to spring forward. Arthur blocked it easily, but had to scramble out of the way of the second attempt. He narrowed his eyes, parrying. They continued back and forth, arms aching, each having moments where they nearly won the advantage but lost it right before victory could be secured.

“Are you done yet, boys?” Morgana called from her log, watching them go back and forth. Arthur resisted the temptation to glance away from the spar to turn to her. “Some of us would like to return home now and not sit on a damp log until the sun goes down.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and he and Lancelot stopped, centimetres from each other, sword scraping together. “Truce?” he asked.

“Truce,” Lancelot agreed. They lowered their weapons and stepped back before shaking hands.

He fought well. That was even more obvious fighting against him. Where the bandits’ advantage had been their numbers, Lancelot’s was his skill. Arthur didn’t know whether it was because he hadn’t fought him before and he was used to fighting people he knew or whether his skill was that strong. Either way, he had been a worthy opponent.

He frowned, crossed to Morgana, and reached out to help her to her feet. He desperately needing a drink, wishing that the horses hadn’t bolted. He also hoped that they were safe, that they’d managed to flee back to the city.

“Blow to your ego to find someone as good as you?” Morgana teased, gripping her hand in his. The three of them turned again for Camelot, Lancelot glancing momentarily at their hands.

He only rolled his eyes at her, not in the mood to get into her jests. That Lancelot was that good was troublesome to him. Arthur could tell that he had the skills needed to be a knight, or very close. He could have put him against any of the Green Knights and Lancelot would win with ease. But he couldn’t do that, because he couldn’t be a knight.

Morgana took over the pleasantries as he was stuck in his thought. She spoke charmingly with Lancelot, finding out where he had come from, what he was doing. Arthur did his best to listen, but he struggled.

With the city gates in sight, Arthur came across a Camelot patrol. “Sire!” Sir Balan said, stopping when they saw him.

“Sir Balan,” Arthur returned, looking at him curiously, wondering what had warranted that greeting.

“We were just sending out patrols. Your horses returned to the city empty.”

He was grateful that they had returned. They were good horses, and being lost in the woods was not a kind fate. But he had spared no thought to the panic that could cause, the horse returning without its king. “We came across bandits,” Arthur explained. “It spooked the horses.”

“But all is well?” he asked, eyes now turning suspiciously to Lancelot, who did his best to appear as if he wasn’t a part of the conversation.

“All is well,” Arthur confirmed. “Lancelot came to my aid and helped me fight them off,” he could sense the distrust. The knights glanced amongst each other, silently voicing a suspicion of this stranger that had come to their king’s aid at the right moment. Maybe it was a disappointment, that if there had been no aid, he would have died, and there would have been a more qualified king to take his place.

Whatever it was, they were wary of Lancelot.

“I appreciate your coming to find me,” Arthur said to his knights. “And I am glad to hear that the horses have returned safety. Thank you for your work.”

“Of course, Sire.”

He stepped past them, and Morgana followed without hesitation. Lancelot stood there for a few moments, before he did too, unsure of what else to do.

Once they were through the city gates, Arthur paused, turning back to Lancelot. “Thank you for coming to our aid,” he said.

“I try to always come to the aid of those I can.”

He looked at him for a few moments before he started walking again. “What are your plans in Camelot now?” he questioned. He should have just continued walking, thanked him and left, because the more he spoke to him the more he admired him. There was something about Lancelot that reminded him of his childhood fantasies of knights.

* * *

He took the Green Knights at training the next morning, many of whom had only scraped through try outs. It showed. Their footwork was poor, their stances weak, their skill lacking.

They should have had better training than they did.

Arthur was younger than them, and he should not have been so exasperated at the skill that they had been brought to him with. But patiently he moved around them, correcting their stances and their posture.

Everyone started at this point, he had to remind himself. Very few were born with a talent, an innate understanding of sword fighting. But when he thought of Lancelot’s self taught skill, he couldn’t help but get frustrated at his knights. And frustrated that Lancelot wasn’t noble to knight him.

As he was finishing training, he saw Lancelot pass by with Merlin. They paused for a moment, watching the training, before Merlin gently nudged Lancelot along. Arthur wondered how they had met each other.

He questioned Merlin later, when the boy was remaking the bed. “Hm?”

“Where did you meet Lancelot?” he repeated himself.

“Oh, I just bumped into him around the city,” he said vaguely, not looking at Arthur.

He frowned at him. “And just started hanging out?”

“Yep,” he said, popping the p. Arthur continued to frown at him, and Merlin continued to use making the bed as an excuse not to look at him.

“And the truth now?” he asked after some silence, when Merlin straightened beside the finished bed.

“…I was being bothered, he came to make sure that I was okay.”

Merlin moved to the washing basket to put away the clean clothes. “Bothered by who?”

“Some of the knights,” Merlin mumbled.

He looked at him troubled. “Some of the knights were bothering you?” A nod. “And Lancelot stopped it?” Another nod. Arthur sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Who was it?” Merlin gave their descriptions, and no, they hadn’t done it before. “If they bother you again, come talk to me.” Knights were meant to protect the people, and some of them were clearly not doing that. Lancelot was though, apparently.

“There’s another one that bothers me all the time,” Merlin said after a pause. “Blonde. Bit of a prat. I hear he’s the king.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Yep. Before you go telling other knights off, you might want to check your own actions against servants.”

Arthur blinked at him, and Merlin picked up the basket of dirty washing, leaving the room. That was different though, he thought once he had gone, he was the king. He frowned.

* * *

“What do you think of the first code, Sir Leon?” It was all that was on his mind as Arthur and the other knight patrolled through the empty city, the occupants asleep, or at least within their confines of their houses.

Leon paused and turned to look at him, the torch in his hand illuminating his confused expression.

“Do you think it’s a good thing?”

He blinked. “It’s said that King Uther implemented it to be sure that he could trust those who would be protecting him.”

“It is,” Arthur agreed, beginning to walk again. The patrol was useless if they stayed in the same spot. “But that is not what I asked.”

“What are you thinking, Sire?” Leon followed beside him, watching him cautiously.

“The First Code is only nobles because I can trust the nobles,” he said. “But what is it that makes the nobles more trustworthy than anyone else? Yes, they swear fealty, but if others swear fealty, does their fealty mean less? And it also implies that those that swear fealty will stand by that, and I know that in cases, they don’t.” Sir Pelleas had proven that. Being a sworn knight of Camelot did not mean that he was safe from them. “So what makes them better?”

“Noble borns are often better with swords, they have had the training growing up, where commoners don’t.”

“But that isn’t always true either. You’ve seen some of the Green Knights,” Leon gave an acknowledging grimace. “And sometimes you get commoners that fight really well.”

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” Leon questioned. “You’ve found a commoner that fights well.”

“He fights really well,” Arthur said. “He fights like a knight, Leon. “ He acts like a knight too, he thought. Although he had only seen him twice, and heard of him once from Merlin, he was sure of that.

“And you want to knight him?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “But I can’t because of the first code. But I can change the first code. If I think that is the right thing to do.”

“You will have a lot of trouble getting it through the council.”

Arthur sighed. “I know.” Although he was the king, he couldn’t just change the laws as he pleased. If he didn’t want to start a revolt, he had to get the council onto his side before he put it through. At least partially.

“Bring it up at the next meeting.”

“I will.”

At the next council meeting he brought it up after the discussion on what they were going to do with the taxes. “Since the war and the plague,” he started, having thought about what would be the best way to bring up the issue without lurching right into the change. “We’ve lost so many knights. It’s getting harder to fill all the patrols and get the numbers that we need.”

“Are you suggesting we call out to more of the lords for their sons to enlist?” Melodias questioned him.

“That is one possibility,” he acknowledged, glancing at Leon, who gave him an encouraging half smile. “The other is that we open up enlisting.”

“Open up enlisting…?” Sir Ector asked slowly, as the council men frowned at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“There are many young, able bodied fighters in Camelot,” Arthur said, staring calmly back at them. “Many of them aren’t nobility, but could be trained to be excellent fighters.”

There was a sudden clamour by the councillors.

“You can’t be serious?”

“That’s unheard of!”

“That’s not the way things are.”

Arthur folded his hands together and waited for them to calm down. He would achieve little by trying to talk over them, fight them on it when they weren’t listening. “Councillors,” he said, raising his voice a little bit to get their attention. Slowly the room quietened again.

“I understand that it is not the way that things have been,” he said carefully. “But I do not believe that that alone is reason to keep things the way that they are.” He had to watch his words, do his best not to offend anyone. “Tradition alone, I do not think, is a reason to uphold laws. However, any reasons that you have, feel free to raise them, and I’ll listen.” He just hoped that he had thought out any reasons that they would give.

They gave the most obvious. That they were put there because he knew he could trust the nobility. That the nobles knew how to fight. Arthur, albeit more eloquently, gave the same reasons that he had given Leon. At the mention of Pelleas, there were some uncomfortable squirms.

“He was a knight, someone who had sworn to my family.” He did not say me, Pelleas had not sworn to him, but to Uther. Sometimes he wondered if that was the difference. “And yet he had tried to kill me.” He wanted to say he was not any safer from nobility than he was from anyone else, but did not.

“If those that wish to be knights swear their fealty, swear loyalty, and everything else that the nobility also has to do, then logically they are upheld to the same standards. They have sworn, so they will obey. Those that don’t will not be any different from the nobility that don’t.”

He spoke of Lancelot in regards to skill. He admitted that he was a fine fighter, that kind that Camelot needed, that would be beneficial to the kingdom. If there was even a percentage of knights similar to Lancelot, Camelot’s already strong army would be even better. “Don’t we want to continue to prove that we have the best army in Albion?” he questioned.

Lancelot had sought to be a Camelot knight, not simply any knight. He kept that thought as he argued.

“I am not saying that we open up the ranks to anyone who wishes to enter,” he clarified. “I believe that we should hold anyone who wishes to be a knight of Camelot to the same testing and rigor as we currently do. They can be tested equally, and only the best will be let through. But it does ensure that we have the best.”

He did not succeed in convincing them, but he took it as a victory all the same. It was a step in the right direction.

He sought out Lancelot, who he knew had not yet left the city because he had seen him a few times with Merlin, when Merlin had not been on his duties. “Your Majesty,” Lancelot greeted, when he came across him, and then watched him curiously. Arthur could see the beginnings of hope in his expression.

“The laws are still as they are, Lancelot,” Arthur said, and the expression of the other fell. “However I think that you have the qualities of a knight and the skill of one. I cannot knight you, yet, because of the laws. But there is nothing prohibiting you training. You will have none of the privileges of a knight, except a chance to have the training.” It was not a new opportunity that he was offering; some of the hopeful knights occasionally trained with the group, rather than their separate training, to gain the skill to be admitted. It was not widely known, but it was possible.

It told Lancelot that while this was the way that things were now, there was the chance that they would change, and that was something that he was willing to try and do.

Lancelot looked at him in surprise. “I…” he started, and then stopped. “Thank you, Sire,” he said softly.

Arthur nodded. “You’re welcome.”

The next part was going to be tricky, he knew. To look like he wasn’t subverting his own laws to knight him. He was also going to have trouble in overthrowing the laws as they were. But he was willing to do it.

He did not doubt that he was doing the right thing. The councillors did have their claims about how it was not the way things were, and how the first code was pivotal to knighthood in Camelot. He was sure his father would be disapproving; he had never budged on that law, no matter the trouble. Even with that knowledge in mind, he was sure he was right, and that it was what was best for Camelot.

* * *

As Arthur left his room, Merlin two steps behind him, they were intercepted by Sir Melodias. “Sire, you’re needed in the throne room. There has been another arrest.”

He sighed. “Am I really needed to sanction every arrest?” he questioned.

“It is protocol in magical cases, Sire,” Sir Melodias said, with no hint of apology.

Out of the corner of his eye, Merlin stiffened. Arthur frowned, and nodded. “What do you know of what happened?” he asked, changing his direction towards the throne room.

“It’s a six or seven year old boy, his neighbour saw him levitating some toys.”

Arthur stalled for a moment and nodded, walking silently the rest of the way. When he entered, he saw the young boy standing in the centre of the room. With a deep breath, he slowly made his way to the front.

The boy’s eyes trailed him. There was no fear or apprehension in his expression, only a slight bewilderment, not understanding what he had done to get there. His mother stood to the side of the room, a knight holding firmly onto her arm to stop her moving to her child.

Looking at her, Arthur thought back to the mother he had seen when he was leaving the city who hastily pushed her son away at the knights. He wondered if it was the same lady.

She looked scared, watching her son with wide eyes. Arthur wondered whether that was a sign of the boy’s guilt, or whether it was fear that he would be charged despite being innocent.

“What happened here?” he asked. He did not sit down in his throne.

A man stepped forward. The neighbour? Arthur wondered.

“I saw the whole thing, Sire,” he said. “I had gone out to hang my washing out on the line and he was playing in the dirt with these wooden blocks, while his mother did her washing.” Said mother’s expression had turned to a glare. These neighbours’ relationship was not going to be pleasant from now on.

Arthur wondered what it was that compelled you to turn a child into the law. He glanced at the boy, still looking bewildered. He had no idea of the crime he had supposedly committed.

“When I looked back again,” the neighbour continued. “The blocks were about a foot in the air.”

Arthur approached the child, and bobbed down so that he was in the same line of sight. “Did you make the block’s float?”

The child’s glance to his mother was a giveaway, but he shook his head. “No.” He didn’t seem to know or understand that magic was wrong, but knew that his mother didn’t want him telling people.

Arthur had little doubt of his guilt. It was not the kind of tale that you told for fun. Unless you severely hated your neighbour, you did not accuse their child of magic, though even if the accusation was correct, there were likely ill feelings between them to make him speak out.

He thought of his promise to Nimueh that he had begrudgingly given. To free the next person arrested of sorcery. Could he do that? Could he dismiss his laws to uphold a promise he had given to a sorceress? Though at the same time, could he go back on his word? He had had the terms before he had agreed to them, he had known what he was agreeing to.

And it was a child. He looked at the boy, who stared back at him with earnest brown eyes. With the light shining into the room, they looked momentarily golden. He couldn’t condemn a child to death, even if it was true. And if it was true, his crime was innocent, harmless. Executing a child for floating blocks…

He turned to the mother. “Has your child, to any of your knowledge, ever used magic?”

“No,” she said instantly. There was a faint shake to her voice.

Arthur nodded and straightened up, returning back to the front of the room. As he did so, he caught Merlin’s eye, who was looking faintly troubled.

“With what has been presented to me,” Arthur started carefully. The mother stiffened, looking at him with pleading eyes. “I do not believe there is enough evidence to find him guilty of sorcery.”

There was a shocked pause in the room. In Uther’s time, even the faintest suspicion of sorcery, the slight chance that a person was magical, would be relentlessly met with execution.

“You may leave with your son,” he said to the mother. She pulled her arm out of the knight’s grip and took her child by the hand. All the other eyes in the room were on Arthur. The neighbour was staring in disbelief, some of the court in disapproval. He couldn’t tell what Merlin’s expression was.

Before any of them had the chance to say anything, he walked out of the hall, Merlin falling into step behind him.

Arthur slumped down in his chair once they returned to his room. Merlin paused right inside the room, looking at him.

“Did you do that because you thought he was – or because you…” Merlin said vaguely.

“He had magic,” Arthur said, thinking of the boy’s sideways glance at his mother. “I am pretty sure of that. But I promised the next person that I arrested I would set free, regardless of whether or not I thought they were innocent or guilty. I was not going back on that promise.”

He wondered whether his actions would have been different if the crime had been different. If that person had used their magic for harm, would he still have stayed by his word? Released a person who had sought to injure?

Merlin glanced at him and nodded. “Are you going to keep that in mind in future arrests?” he asked tentatively. When Arthur frowned at him, he explained. “That maybe not every magical crime deserves death, as has been shown here. Is that going to impact your later actions?”

He continued frowning, not having thought about that. In his mind it had been a one off action. That he would pardon the person then and that would be the end of it. But perhaps Merlin was right – though Arthur would never admit it. If he could do it once, what was stopping him doing it again? If it was something small that did not deserve death… Though that went against the laws. All magic was condemned. Except the boy I just pardoned, he thought, troubled.

“I don’t know,” he admitted to Merlin, who had a flash of disappointment, but hid it quickly. That was something he was going to have to think about.

* * *

“They’ll undermine everything that the knights are,” Sir Ector exclaimed, looking at Arthur disapprovingly. “Your father would never have suggested something so stupid.”

If that was meant to get him to back down, it did the opposite. He had been king for almost two years, and his patience for being compared to his father was wearing thin. He admired his father, and had wanted to be like him, but he had to be his own person. “I am not my father,” he said, keeping his tone calm and patient. “And I believe that it will be best for Camelot.”

“I agree,” Sir Leon said. “More people in the army will not be a bad thing. If it comes to a war or a battle, we will have the resources to defend ourselves. We no longer have the numbers we did when we set out against Cenred.”

Arthur gave him a grateful look.

“My brother Gareth says that the commoner – Lancelot, fights better than anyone he’s seen. He adores him,” Gaheris said. “I’ve seen him fight. I think we’d be stupid not to knight him before somebody else gets him. I wouldn’t want to meet him on a battlefield.”

Arthur agreed. He had stopped by to watch the pre-knight training, where Lancelot had managed to get some of the battle tested knights to fight against him and had beat many of them with ease.

“It’s not the way things are,” Sir Kay protested. “It will change everything.”

“But could the change be a good thing?” Gaheris questioned.

The majority seemed to think so, and so months after he had first raised the issue, the First Code was abolished.

The first thing that he did was find Lancelot. “In the morning, you’ll have your test to become a knight.”

Lancelot stalled, staring at him in surprise. “I – what?”

“Your test,” Arthur said, smiling as what he had said dawned on Lancelot. “It’s to be tomorrow morning. If you pass, you shall become a knight of Camelot.” He hoped that he passed it. Lancelot had been the evidence of the strong fighters that Camelot could gain if they changed the laws; he would look foolish if Lancelot failed.

“Thank you, Sire,” he said softly.

“I wish you best of luck.” Lancelot didn’t need luck, he had all the talent and skill that he needed to be knighted.

The numbers at training were decreasing. Arthur looked at the group before him, frowning lightly. As far as he was aware, all patrols were being met, but training was becoming sparser. “Where is everyone, Leon?” he questioned.

“They’re making a point, Sire,” Leon said, eyes flicking momentarily to Lancelot. “They find offence in your changing the First Code.”

“All I’ve done is make it possible for us to have a stronger army.”

“You have upturned what many see as the foundation of the knights. Especially the older ones that knew Uther well.”

Looking around, it was mostly the older knights who weren’t coming to training. Those that had been knights his whole life. “Maybe it’s time to get new blood in,” Arthur said. “Those that are loyal to me and my ideals, and not to the echo of my father.”

“That is a good idea, Sire, but be careful of turning the rest against you in that process. You don’t want to be forced to face a rebellion.”

“I’m not going to kick them out, Leon. But I need to start surrounding myself with people hand picked by me,” he looked to Lancelot again, sparring against Gaheris. Despite the trouble that he knew it had caused, and would cause, he did not regret that decision.

* * *

He thought of the destiny that Nimueh and the dragon had spoken of, though it never made more sense than it had the first time. It was that desire for answers that led him to the dragon.

As he turned into the hallway to the dungeons, he saw Merlin turn the corner on the end. He wondered if Merlin knew where he was heading, or was aimlessly wandering around. He opened his mouth to call out to him, but shut it. He would see what was happening first before accosting him.

When he reached the entrance where his knights were guarding, he saw them both bobbed down, gathering their cards off the floor. He cleared his throat and they both jolted to their feet, looking sheepish.

“Has anyone else been through here recently?” he questioned.

They frowned at him in confusion. “No, Sire. Was there meant to?”

“No, there wasn’t.” s far as he was aware, this was the only entrance in and out of the dragon’s den, so Merlin must have passed the guards. He gave a dismissive wave of his hand to the guards and passed them. Entering the tunnel, he saw a torch disappearing around the corner at the bottom. Merlin must have passed them when they were distracted gathering their cards.

Frowning, he pulled back into the shadows to wait. He could have just gone down and accosted Merlin, but he doubted he was going to get an honest answer. He wanted to see how Merlin planned on getting out of the tunnel without being noticed.

The answer came shortly later. Merlin walked right past him, without noticing that he was hiding in the shadows. He paused in the entrance way for a moment, watching the guards intently play their card game. The cards then tumbled off the end of the table, untouched.

The guards sighed, leaning over to the floor to begin gathering them again, and Merlin quickly and silently ducked past them.

The first thought - Merlin has magic? – seemed impossible, implausible. There was no way that his servant, his useless, idiotic, transparent servant, had been hiding magic. The idea of it was just absurd.

But those cards had not sent themselves off the table. The guards hadn’t done it, he hadn’t done it, which only left Merlin. Merlin has magic. It seemed just as ridiculous the second time.

Merlin - cheerful, cheeky, sarcastic – seemed like the least likely person to have magic. Morgana was more likely to have magic than Merlin. Still unsure whether he believed that some with magic could be good, Merlin did not even closely resemble what he imagined sorcerers to be.

He watched the guards redeal the deck between them, none the wiser of the sorcerer who had just slipped unnoticed past them, or their troubled young king in the shadows.

He frowned and set about down the stairs to the dragon’s den. Maybe he would have some answers.

The dragon was perched on his rock when Arthur entered.

“Young Pendragon,” he greeted. “What brings you down here?”

“Why was Merlin here?” he asked, ignoring the dragon’s question. He wondered if it had to do with his magic, seeking the championship of a creature of magic.

“Perhaps he has similar reasons to yours for coming here.” Arthur frowned at him. He had come seeking answers of his destiny. Regardless of whether he was magical or not, what use would Merlin, a servant from an outlying village, have for questions of destiny?

“Destiny does not just rest on the shoulders of the well known,” the dragon told him.

“What’s Merlin’s destiny?” he got no answer. “What’s mine?” he asked, remembering the reason he had decided to come down here in the first place. “What are these great things you said I would achieve?”

“You are said to bring peace together, to unite the lands of Albion.”

“There is already peace,” he protested, instead of focusing on the idea that a servant was meant to help him bring peace to Albion. “My father brought peace.” Uther had said as much, so many times.

“He brought the pretense of peace,” the dragon said derisively. “He murdered countless people in the name of a peace that he never brought. You call that peace? The constant executions and raids and deaths? That was not peace, young Pendragon.”

Arthur looked at him for a few moments, silently. “Then I can’t bring peace,” he said, voice soft. “I am no different from my father.” It was usually a statement that he was proud of, because he had admired him so much. But when coupled with the deaths that he had brought… Arthur’s usual claim that Uther had done what he had had to felt hollow against that. Especially when he knew what it was like to be the one to cast the sentence.

“But you can be.” 

* * *

                                                                          

Merlin was scrubbing his floors when Arthur returned to his room. He paused in the doorway, watching him for a few moments. “Where have you been, Merlin?” he questioned, keeping his tone light as he crossed the room – right through where Merlin was cleaning – to his desk.

“I just cleaned that,” Merlin grumbled, moving his scrub brush to the marks Arthur had made in the floor.

“That wasn’t my question.”

“Hm?”

“Where were you?”

“Before I came here?” Arthur nodded. “Oh, I was delivering some potions for Gaius.”

“So my seeing you in the dungeons was what? Does the dragon have trouble sleeping?”

His scrubbing stopped for a moment and his eyes flickered up to Arthur, before returning to it. “I got lost. I still don’t know my way completely around the castle.” Arthur could have believed that; even living here his whole life, it had taken years until he had known his way around the whole place. If it hadn’t been for the cards flying off the table, for Arthur’s conversation with the dragon, for the flash of panic in Merlin’s eyes.

He did not blame Merlin for lying to him. They had only known each other for a collection of months, to be fair. And with the laws how they were, it was only self preservation that had led him to lie. It would have been foolish to announce that he was magical, when the sentence was irrefutably death.

So he did not push it. “Slow learner,” he teased instead, watching as Merlin’s guard dropped.

“Not all of us grew up in castles.”

Arthur made a face at him, which Merlin returned before continuing with his scrubbing.

He didn’t understand why someone with magic would spend their time as a servant. Surely if you had that much power… But Merlin took the chores, took Arthur’s mocking, with a general good humour.

It went against what he knew of magic. That sorcerers were power hungry and would not rest until the kingdom was theirs.

Merlin did not seem like that. And if he had magic, then it couldn’t be how Arthur had thought. He frowned, watching Merlin. He thought of what the dragon had said, that he was meant to bring peace, to unite the lands of Albion, and that Merlin was meant to help him do that. How was he meant to do that? How was a servant meant to do that? Perhaps it was his magic. Perhaps magic would help him and Merlin achieve peace.

For peace, Arthur would legalise magic.

* * *

Unlike the First Code, Arthur knew that he couldn’t put changing the magic laws up as a proposition. There had been a grudging acceptance of the changing of the knights code. He was very sure that he would be met with outright hostility for this.

He needed the support of the people, but he also needed to be firm in his own decisions.

With a deep breath he sat down at the table, as the eyes on the room settled on him. “I am making a change to the magic laws.”

There was a sudden clamour. Even Leon looked at him in surprise. Heart hammering, he looked between the councillors.

“I do not accept this,” Sir Ector said angrily, voice ringing above the others, not even allowing Arthur to try and explain his reasoning.

Arthur stared across at him, trying to show a calm that he did not feel. “You do not have to. This is my decision.”

“Then I resign.”

He had been expecting anger, but resignation was a surprise. For Ector to abandon his status, his position of power and authority, was shocking. He had decided that Arthur was no longer worth following, or perhaps realised that he didn’t have the authority to sway Arthur’s decisions.

Perhaps that was a good thing. To remove the people that did not believe in him, did not listen, or trust his decisions. “Then go ahead.”

Ector’s nostrils flared, and he stared at Arthur with an expression akin to disgust. “You’re a disgrace to the name of Pendragon, to your father’s reign.”

“I am my own person, Sir Ector. It is time that you realise that I will rule as such.”

Ector walked out, three other people followed him.

Arthur forced himself not to watch them leave and turned back to the rest of the men at the table. Many of them also looked displeased; even Leon was frowning lightly at him.

“Are there any other problems?”

He was met with silence.

There was a handful more resignations the next day.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Sire?” Leon asked, falling into step beside Arthur on their way to training.

“I believe it is the right course of action,” he responded. He had questioned that himself as he had laid in bed after the council meeting. Reliving Ector’s expression of disgust, the condemnation in his words against him compared to his father. He had always strived to make his father proud, and those word had enforced the realisation that these actions were not going to do that.

But he was sure that they were the right course of action. He was meant to achieve peace, to unite Albion, and he could not do that with such a rift between the magical and non magical community. He couldn’t do that if people did not feel safe. If Merlin was said to aid him in this destiny, he would have to be free to use his magic.

Leon looked at him for a few moments, and then nodded. “Then I will trust you on that.”

“Thank you, Leon.”

Word must have spread about what he had chosen to do, because when they arrived at training, the numbers were significantly depleted. They had already lost many from those who disagreed about his decision to abolish the first code. This was a further blow to their numbers.

Even many of those that were there were looking at him with disapproving expressions. A few smiled faintly at him, which Arthur returned.

Halfway through the training Sir Gaheris came up to him. “Sire, we have no knights guarding the city entrance.”

Arthur frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"Whoever is meant to be posted there is not there."

That concerned him. Avoiding training was one thing, abandoning their job and their vows was another. "Go find out who was on that patrol," he paused for a moment. "Give them a chance to go to their post. If they choose not to, arrest them."

He wondered how many of the knights had abandoned their post that day. Gaheris bowed and withdrew, leaving a troubled Arthur. He couldn’t arrest every knight that ignored their post, and he wanted to bring peace. This was not the way to bring peace.

He couldn’t do nothing for them having forsaken their vows. Stripping them of their knighthood would work, but that would risk further alienating the noble families, and could place a rebellion on his doorstep.

He just knew that he couldn't let it go on as it was. He couldn’t have his ranks full of people that deserted.

Here was his chance to fill up the knights of Camelot and his council with his own men, those that he trusted and supported him. This could be a good thing.

* * *

"You look exhausted, Arthur," Morgana commented, looking at him with concern as she came across him in the hallway.

"I am," he said honestly, smiling tiredly at her.

"What's the matter?"

"Three quarters of my council has resigned. Many of my knights have abandoned their post. Trying to deal with it is a political mess."

She frowned at him. "What did you do to cause that?"

"I announced I was changing the magic laws." He had no hesitation in telling Morgana, she was always going to react with glee.

"What?" she exclaimed, eyes going wide. "Arthur…” she threw her arms around him, kissing him.

He kissed back, and when she pulled back, he smiled at her. "I'm changing the magic laws," he repeated.

She grinned at him. "That's wonderful," she said, still with her arms around him. "I'm proud of you."

"Yeah?" he asked, with a faint smile. His father would not have been proud of him, but it was enough that Morgana was.

"Yeah," she agreed, smiling back at him.

* * *

He did not question when he entered the council room and saw Nimueh standing by the window. He closed the door behind him before the guards noticed her there, though he wondered if they could, if she had spelled it to be unnoticed.

“Nimueh.”

She turned to look at him. “Arthur Pendragon.”

“Why are you here?” he questioned bluntly. “I am changing the laws, you do not need to bring any more harm to my people.”

“I have no intention of bringing harm.” He eyed her suspiciously, not quite believing that. She simply looked back at him. “I am here with an offering.”

“An offering?” he asked warily, stepping towards her, hand resting against the hilt of his sword, even though they both knew that his sword did little against her magic.

“An alliance between the people of the Old Religion and Camelot. A chance to learn what is happening within the magical community, so that you can better welcome it.”

He eyed her. He still did not trust Nimueh, for all that she had done against Camelot, but he knew so little about the people of the Old Religion, or the druids. If he was to welcome them into his kingdom, he would need to know more. “I accept this offering.”

 

* * *

 

 When Leon placed the chess set down before him, he only smiled faintly before moving his knight. With a satisfied nod, Leon sat down across from him and moved one of his pawns.

“I wouldn’t have – “ Leon started, but stopped, when a handful of moves later Arthur moved his bishop across the board and took his queen.

“You wouldn’t have?” he questioned, moving the queen to the edge of the board.

“Nothing,” he said, moving his castle.

Arthur smiled as his knight took it. “You’re getting careless, Leon,” he said, faintly mocking, and laughed when Leon looked at him with a faint frown.

“No, I’m not,” he protested. He looked at the board, and it was a few minutes until he moved his next piece. “You’re just getting better.”

Arthur was inclined to agree, when six moves later, he trapped Leon’s king in the corner of the board.

“Checkmate.”

 

                                                                

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Mortal Boy King (art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4753976) by [kikis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikis/pseuds/kikis)




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